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FETICHISM IN 
WEST AFRICA 



FETICHISM 
IN WEST AFRICA 

Forty Years' Observation of Native Customs 
and Superstitions 

BY THE 

REV. ROBERT HAMILL NASSAU, M.D., S.T.D. 

FOR FORTY YEARS A MISSIONARY IN THE GABUN DISTRICT 

OF KONGO-FRANCAISE 
y 

AUTHOR OF "CROWNED IN PALM LAND," "MAWEDO" 



WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1904 



LifH*a*V of 30N8RESS 
T*«o Aomes Received 
SEP 9 1904 

O CgWrtffht Entry , 

CLAS3 ^ XXo. No. 

C©PY B 






Copyright, 1904 
By Charles Scribner's Sons 



Published October, 1904 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



PEEFACE 

ON the 2d of July, 1861, 1 sailed from New York City on 
a little brig, the "Ocean Eagle," with destination to 
the island of Corisco, near the equator, on the West Coast of 
Africa. My first introduction to the natives of Africa was 
a month later, when the vessel stopped at Monrovia, the 
capital of the Liberian Republic, to land a portion of its 
trade goods, and at other ports of Liberia, Sinoe, and Cape 
Palmas; thence to Corisco on September 12. 

Corisco is a microcosm, only five miles long by three miles 
wide ; its surface diversified with every variety of landscape, 
proportioned to its size, of hill, prairie, stream, and lake. It 
is located in the eye of the elephant-head shaped Bay of 
Corisco, and from twelve to twenty miles distant from the 
mainland. Into the bay flow two large rivers, — the Muni 
(the Rio D'Angra of commerce) and the Munda (this latter 
representing the elephant's proboscis). 

The island, with adjacent mainland, was inhabited by the 
Benga tribe. It was the headquarters of the American Pres- 
byterian Mission. On the voyage I had studied the Benga 
dialect with my fellow-passenger, the senior member of the 
Mission, Rev. James L. Mackey; and was able, on my land- 
ing, to converse so well with the natives that they at once 
enthusiastically accepted me as an interested friend. This 
has ever since been my status among all other tribes. 

I lived four years on the island, as preacher, teacher, 
and itinerant to the adjacent mainland, south to the Gabun 
River and its Mpongwe tribe, east up the Muni and Munda 
rivers, and north to the Benito River, 



vi PREFACE 

In my study of the natives' language my attention was 
drawn closely to their customs; and in my inquiry into 
their religion I at once saw how it was bound up in these 
customs. I met with other white men — traders, govern- 
ment officials, and even some missionaries — whose interest 
in Africa, however deep, was circumscribed by their special 
work for, respectively, wealth, power, and Gospel procla- 
mation. They could see in those customs only " folly, " and 
in the religion only "superstition." 

I read many books on other parts of Africa, in which the 
same customs and religion prevailed. I did not think it 
reasonable to dismiss curtly as absurd the cherished senti- 
ments of so large a portion of the human race. I asked 
myself : Is there no logical ground for the existence of these 
sentiments, no philosophy behind all these beliefs ? I began 
to search; and thenceforward for thirty years, wherever I 
travelled, wherever I was guest to native chief, wherever I 
lived, I was always leading the conversation, in hut or camp, 
back to a study of the native thought. 

I soon found that I gained nothing if I put my questions 
suddenly or without mask. The natives generally were 
aware that white men despised them and their beliefs, and 
they were slow to admit me to their thought if I made a 
direct advance. But, by chatting as a friend, telling them 
the strange and great things of my own country, and first 
eliciting their trust in me and interest in my stories, they 
forgot their reticence, and responded by telling me of their 
country. I listened, not critically, but apparently as a be- 
liever ; and then they vied with each other in telling me all 
they knew and thought. 

That has been the history of a thousand social chats,, — in 
canoes by day, in camp and hut by night, and at all hours in 
my own house, whose public room wa^ open at any hour of 
day or evening for any visitor, petitioner, or lounger, my 



PREFACE vii 

attention to whose wants or wishes was rewarded by some 
confidence about their habits or doings. 

In 1865 I was transferred to Benito, where I remained 
until the close of 1871. Those years were full of travels 
afoot or by boat, south the hundred miles to Gabun, north 
toward the Batanga region, and east up the Benito for a hun- 
dred miles as a pioneer, to the Balengi and Boheba tribes, — 
a distance at that time unprecedented, considering the almost 
fierce opposition of the coast people to any white man's going 
to the local sources of their trade. 

After more than ten uninterrupted years in Africa, I took 
a furlough of more than two years in the United States, and 
returned to my work in 1874. 

I responded to a strong demand on the part of the sup- 
porters of Foreign Missions in Africa, that mission operations 
should no longer be confined to the coast. Unsuccessful 
efforts had been made to enter by the Gabun, by the Muni, 
and by the Benito. 

On the 10th of September, 1874, I entered the Ogowe 
River, at Nazareth Bay, one of its several embouchures into 
the Atlantic, near Cape Lopez, a degree south of the 
equator. But little was known of the Ogowe. Du Chaillu, 
in his " Equatorial Africa " (1861), barely mentions it, though 
he was hunting gorillas and journeying in " Ashango Land," 
on the sources of the Ngunye, a large southern affluent of the 
Ogowe. 

A French gunboat a few years before had ascended it for 
one hundred and thirty miles to Lembarene, the head of the 
Ogowe Delta, and had attached it to France. Two English 
traders and one German had built trading-houses at that one- 
hundred-and-thirty-mile limit, and traversed the river with 
small steam launches in their rubber trade. Besides these 
three, I was the only other white resident. They were 
living in the Galwa tribe, cognate in language with the 



viii PREFACE 

Mpongwe. I settled at a one-hundred-and-fifty-mile limit, 
in the Akele tribe (cognate with the Benga), building my 
house at a place called Belambila. 

Two years later I abandoned that spot, came down to 
Lembarene, and built on Kangwe Hill. There I learned 
the Mpongwe dialect. I remained there until 1880, suc- 
cessful with school and church, and travelling by boat and 
canoe thousands of miles in the many branches of the Ogowe, 
through its Delta, and in the lake country of Lakes Onange 
and Azyingo. In 1880 I took a second furlough to the 
United States, remaining eighteen months, and returning 
at the close of 1881. 

My prosperous and comfortable station at Kangwe was 
occupied by a new man, and I resumed my old role of 
pioneer. I travelled up the Ogowe, one hundred and fifty 
miles beyond Lembarene, ascending and descending the wild 
waters of its cataracts, and settled at Talaguga, a noted rock 
near which was subsequently established the French military 
post, Njoli, at the two-hundred-mile limit of the course of 
the river. There I was alone with Mrs. Nassau, my nearest 
white neighbors the two French officers five miles up river at 
the post, and my successors at Kangwe, seventy miles down 
river. The inhabitants were wild cannibal Fang, just re- 
cently emerged from the interior forest. It was a splendid 
field for original investigation, and I applied myself to the 
Fang dialect. 

I remained at Talaguga until 1891, when I took a third 
furlough to the United States, and stayed through 1892, 
during which time the Mission Board transferred my en- 
tire Ogowe work, with its two stations and four churches 
and successful schools, to the French Paris Evangelical 
Society. 

In March, 1893, at the request of the Rev. Frank F. Ellin- 
wood, D.D., LL.D., I wrote and read, before the American 



PREFACE ix 

Society of Comparative Religions, a forty-minute essay on 
Bantu Theology. 

At the wish of that Society I loaned the manuscript to 
them, for their use in the Parliament of Religions at the 
Chicago Exposition; but I carried the original draft of the 
essay with me on my return to Africa in August, 1893, 
where I was located at Libreville, Gabun, the Mission's 
oldest and most civilized station. There I found special 
advantage for my investigations. Though those educated 
Mpongwes could tell me little that was new as to purely 
unadulterated native thought, they, better than an ignorant 
tribe, could and did give me valuable intelligent replies to 
my inquiries as to the logical connection between native 
belief and act, and the essential meaning of things which 
I had seen and heard elsewhere. My ignorant friends at 
other places had given me a mass of isolated statements. 
My Mpongwe friends had studied a little grammar, and 
were somewhat trained to analyze. They helped me in the 
collocation of the statements and in the deduction of the 
philosophy behind them. It was there that I began to put 
my conclusions in writing. 

In 1895 Miss Mary H. Kingsley journeyed in West Africa, 
sent on a special mission to investigate the subject of fresh- 
water fishes. She also gratified her own personal interest in 
native African religious beliefs by close inquiries all along 
the coast. 

During her stay at Libreville in the Kongo-Francais, 
May-September, 1895, my interest, common with hers, in 
the study of native African thought led me into frequent 
and intimate conversations with her on that subject. She 
eagerly accepted what information, from my longer residence 
in Africa, I was able to impart. I loaned her the essay, 
with permission to make any use of it she desired in her 
proposed book, "Travels in West Africa." When that 



x PREFACE 

graphic story of her African wanderings appeared in 1897, 
she made courteous acknowledgment of the use she had 
made of it in her chapters on Fetich. 

On page 395 of her "Travels in West Africa," referring 
to my missionary works, and to some contributions I had 
made to science, she wrote : " Still I deeply regret he has not 
done more for science and geography. ... I beg to state I 
am not grumbling at him . . . but entirely from the justifi- 
able irritation a student of fetich feels at knowing that there 
is but one copy of this collection of materials, and that this 
copy is in the form of a human being, and will disappear 
with him before it is half learned by us, who cannot do the 
things he has done." 

This suggestion of Miss Kingsley's gave me no new 
thought; it only sharpened a desire I had hopelessly cher- 
ished for some years. In my many missionary occupations 
— translation of the Scriptures, and other duties — I had 
never found the strength, when the special missionary daily 
work was done, to sit down and put into writing the mass 
of material I had collected as to the meaning and uses of 
fetiches. Nor did I think it right for me to take time that 
was paid for by the church in which to compile a book that 
would be my own personal pleasure and property. 

Impressed with this idea, on my fourth furlough to America 
in 1899, I confided my wish to a few personal friends, telling 
them of my plan, not indeed ever to give up my life-work 
in and for Africa, but to resign from connection with the 
Board; and, returning to Africa under independent employ 
and freed from mission control, but still working under my 
Presbytery, have time to gratify my pen. 

One of these friends was William Libbey, D. Sc. , Professor 
of Physical Geography and Director of the E. M. Museum 
of Geology and Archaeology in Princeton University. With- 
out my knowledge he subsequently mentioned the subject 



PREFACE xi 

to his university friend, Rev. A. Woodruff Halsey, D.D., 
one of the Secretaries of the Board of Foreign Missions. Dr. 
Halsey thought my wish could be gratified without my re- 
signing from the Board's service. 

In November, 1899, the following action of the Board was 
forwarded to me: "November 20th, 1899. In view of the 
wide and varied information possessed by the Rev. Robert 
H. Nassau, D.D., of the West Africa Mission, regarding the 
customs and traditions of the tribes on the West Coast, and 
the importance of putting that knowledge into some perma- 
nent form, the Board requested Dr. Nassau to prepare a vol- 
ume or volumes on the subject; and it directed the West 
Africa Mission to assign him, on his return from his fur- 
lough, to such forms of missionary work as will give him the 
necessary leisure and opportunity." 

On my return to Africa in 1900, I was located at Batanga, 
one hundred and seventy miles north of Gabun, and was 
assigned to the pastorate of the Batanga Church, the largest 
of the twelve churches of the Corisco Presbytery, with itinera- 
tion to and charge of the sessions of the Kribi and Ubenji 
churches. 

During intervals of time in the discharge of these pastoral 
duties my recreation was the writing and sifting of the mul- 
titude of notes I had collected on native superstition during 
the previous quarter of a century. The people of Batanga, 
though largely emancipated from the fetich practices of sup- 
erstition, still believed in its witchcraft aspect. I began there 
to arrange the manuscript of this work. There, more than 
elsewhere, the natives seemed willing to tell me tales of their 
folk-lore, involving fetich beliefs. From them, and also from 
Mpongwe informants, were gathered largely the contents of 
Chapters XVI and XVII. 

And now, on this my fifth furlough, the essay on Bantu 
Theology has grown to the proportions of this present volume. 



xii PREFACE 

The conclusions contained in all these chapters are based 
on my own observations and investigations. 

Obligation is acknowledged to a number of writers on 
Africa and others, quotations from whose books are credited 
in the body of this work. I quote them, not as informants 
of something I did not already know, but as witnesses to the 
fact of the universality of the same superstitious ideas all 
over Africa. 

By the courtesy of the American Geographical Society, 
Chapters IV, V, X, and XI have appeared in its Bulletin 
during the years 1901-1903. 

I am especially obligated to Professor Libbey for his sym- 
pathetic encouragement during the writing of my manuscript, 
and for his judicious suggestions as to the final form I have 
given it. 

ROBERT HAMILL NASSAU 

Philadelphia, March 24, 1904 




Fetich Magician - . 
(With horns, wooden mask, spear, and sword ; dress of leaves of palm and plantain.) 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

Page 
Constitution of Native African Society — Sociology . 1 

I. The Country 2 

II. The Family 3 

Family Responsibility. — Family Headship. — Mari- 
tal Relations. — Arrangements for Marriage. — Court- 
ship and Wedding. — Dissolution of Marriage. — Ille- 
gitimate Marital Relations. — Domestic Life. 

III. Succession to Property and Authority 13 

IV. Political Organization 13 

V. Servants 14 

VI. Kingship . 15 

<3ID Fetich Doctors 16 

VIII. Hospitality 17 

Qp Judicial System 17 

Courts. =-Pttnishment. — Blood- Atonement and Fines. 
-^Ilunishable Acts. 

X. Territorial Relations .• 4 22 

Tenure. — Rights in Movables. 

XI. Exchange Relations 23 

XII. Religion 25 



CHAPTER II 
The Idea of God — Religion 26 

Theology, Religion, Creed, Worship. — Source of the Knowl- 
edge of God ; outside of us ; comes from God ; Evolution of 
Physical Species. — Materialism ; Knowledge of God not 
evolved. — Superstition in all Religions. — Dominant in African 
Religion. — No People without a Knowledge of at least the 
Name of God. — Testimony of Travellers and Others. 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

Page 
Polytheism — Idolatry 42 

Religion and Civilization. — Worship of Natural Objects. — 
Polytheism. — Idolatry. — Worship of Ancestors. — Fetichism. 

CHAPTER IY 

Spiritual Beings in African Religion 50 

I. Origin 50 

Coterminous with the Creator. — Created. — Spirits of 
Deceased Human Beings; in Unity, Duality, Trinity, or 
Quadruplicity. 

II. Number ' 55 

III. Locality 58 

IY. Characteristics 62 

CHAPTER Y 

Spiritual Beings in Africa — Their Classes and Func- 
tions 64 

I. Classes and Functions 64 

Inina. — Ibambo. — Ombwiri. — Nkinda. — Mondi. 

II. Special Manifestations 70 

Human Soul in a Lower Animal ; the Leopard Fiend. — 
Uvengwa, Ghost. — Family Guardian-Spirit. 

CHAPTER YI 

Fetichism — Its Philosophy — A Physical Salvation — 
Charms and Amulets 75 

Monotheism. — Polytheism. — Animism. — Fetichism. 

The Salvation Sought: its Kind, Physical; its Source, 
Spirits; its Reason, Fear. 

The Means used: Prayer, Sacrifices, Charms ; Vocal, Ritual, 
Material, Fetiches. 

Articles used in the Fetich. — Mode of Preparation: A Fit- 
ness in the Quality of the Object for the End desired; Effi- 
ciency depends on the Localized Spirit; Misuse of the Word 
" Medicine " ; Native " Doctors " ; Connection of Fetich with 
Witchcraft. 



CONTENTS xv 
CHAPTER VII 

Page 

The Fetich — A Worship . 90 

I. Sacrifice and Offerings 91 

Small Votive Gifts. — Consecrated Plants ; Idols and 
Gifts of Food. — Blood Sacrifices. — Human Sacrifices. 

II. Prayer 97 

III. The Use of Charms or " Fetiches " 99 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Fetich — Witchcraft — A White Art — Sorcery . 100 
A passively Defensive Art. — Professedly of the Nature of a 
Medicine. — Distinction between a Fetich Doctor and a Christian 
Physician. — Manner of Performance of the White Art. — The 
Medicinal Herbs used sometimes Valuable. — Strength of Native 
Faith in the System. 

CHAPTER IX 

The Fetich' — Witchcraft — A Black Art — Demonology 116 

Distinction as to the Object aimed at in the White Art and in 
the Black Art. — Black Art actively Offensive. — The Black Art 
distinctively "Witchcraft." — Witchcraft Executions; claimed 
to be Judicial Acts. — Hoodoo Worship. — Christian Faith and 
Fetich Faith Compared. — Deception by Fetich Magicians. — 
Clairvoyance. — Demoniacal Possession. 



CHAPTER X 

Fetichism — A Government 138 

Egbo, Ukuku, Yasi, and other Societies. — Their Power either 
to protect or oppress. — Contest with Ukuku at Benita, and with 
Yasi on the Ogowe. 

CHAPTER XI 

The Fetich — Its Relation to the Family 156 

The Family the Unit in the African Community. — Respect 
for the Aged. — Worship of Ancestors. — Family Fetiches ; 
Yaka, Ekongi, Mbati. 

b 



xvi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XII 

Page 
The Fetich — Its Relations to Daily Work and Occu- 
pations and to the Needs of Life 172 

Hunting. — Journeying. — Warring. — Trading ; Okundu and 
Mbumbu. — Sickness. — Loving. — Fishing. — Planting. 

CHAPTER XIII 

The Fetich — Superstition in Customs 191 

Rules of Pregnancy. — Omens on Journeys. — Leopard Fiends. 

— Luck. — Twins. — Customs of Speech. — Oaths. — Totem Wor- 

— ship. — Taboo ; Orunda. — Baptism. — Spitting. — Notice of 
Children. 

CHAPTER XIV 

Fetich — Its Relation to the Future Life — Cere- 
monies at Deaths and Funerals 215 

Sickness, Death, Burial, Modes of Burial. — Mourning, Treat- 
ment of Widows.— Witchcraft Investigations. — Places of Burial. 

— Cannibalism. — Family Quarrel as to Precedence in the Bury- 
ing. — Custom of "Lifting Up " of Mourners. — Ukuku Dance for 
Amusement. — Destination of the Dead. — Transmigration. 

CHAPTER XV 

Fetichism — Some of its P ractical Effects .... 239 

Depopulation. — Cannibalism. — Secret Societies (Ukuku, 
Yasi, Mwetyi, Bweti, Inda, Njembe). — Poisoning for Revenge. 
— Distrust. — Jugglery. — Treatment of Lunatics. — The Ameri- 
can Negro Hoodoo. — Folk-Lore. 

CHAPTER XVI 

Tales of Fetich Based on Fact 277 

I. A Witch Sweetheart 278 

II. A Jealous Wife 281 

III. Witchcraft Mothers 284 

IV. The Wizard House-Breaker 287 

V. The Wizard Murderer 289 

VI. The Wizard and his Invisible Dos 293 



CONTENTS xvii 

Page 

VII. Spirit-Dancing 295 

VIII. Asiki, or the Little Beings 299 

IX. Okove 302 

X. The Family Idols (Okasi, Barbarity, The Right of 

Sanctuary) 308 

XI. Unago and Ekela (A Proverb) 318 

XII. Malanda — An Initiation into a Family Guardian- 
Spirit Company 320 

XIII. Three-Things Came Back too Late 326 

CHAPTER XVII 

Fetich in Folk-Lore 330 

I. Queen Ngwe-nkonde and her Manja 332 

II. The Beautiful Daughter 337 

III. The Husband that Came from an Animal . . . 346 

IV. The Fairy Wife 351 

V. The Thieves and their Enchanted House .... 358 

VI. Banga-of-the-five-faces 367 

VII. The Two Brothers 372 

VIII. J6ki and his Ozazi 378 



Glossary 387 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Fetich Magician Frontispiece 

Facing Page 

Native King in the Niger Delta 16 

English Trading-House. — Gabun 24 ( 

Fetich Doctor 86 • 

Elephants' Tusks and Palm-leaf Thatch. Two Hundred 

Miles up the Ogowe River 148 " 

War Canoe. — Calabar, West Africa 174 / 

Natives Trading in Plantains and Bamboo Building Ma- 
terials. — Gabun 182 

Travelling by Canoe. — Ogowe River 198 ' 

A Civilized Family. — Gabun 236 / 

Njembe. Female Secret Society. — Mpongwe, Gabun . . 254 ' 

Ekope of the Tvanga Dance. — Gabun 296 

A Street in Libreville, Gabun 300 "" 

Map of the West African Coast . 1 » 



FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 



CHAPTER I 

CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE AFRICAN SOCIETY — 
SOCIOLOGY 

THAT stream of the Negro race which is known ethno- 
logically as " Bantu," occupies all of the southern 
portion of the African continent below the fourth degree of 
north latitude. It is divided into a multitude of tribes, each 
with its own peculiar dialect. All these dialects are cognate 
in their grammar. Some of them vary only slightly in their 
vocabulary. In others the vocabulary is so distinctly differ- 
ent that it is not understood by tribes only one hundred miles 
apart, while that of others a thousand miles away may be 
intelligible. 

In their migrations the tribes have been like a river, with 
its windings, currents swift or slow ; there have been even, in 
places, back currents ; and elsewhere quiet, almost stagnant 
pools. But they all — from the Divala at Kamerun on the 
West Coast across to the Kiswahile at Zanzibar on the East, 
and from Buganda by the Victoria Nyanza at the north down 
to Zulu in the south at the Cape — have a uniformity in lan- 
guage, tribal organization, family customs, judicial rules and 
regulations, marriage ceremonies, funeral rites, and religious 
beliefs and practice. Dissimilarities have crept in with mix- 
ture among themselves by intermarriage, the example of 
foreigners, with some forms of foreign civilization and educa- 
tion, degradation by foreign vice, elevation by Christianity, 
and compulsion by foreign governments. 

1 



2 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

As a description of Bantu sociology, I give the following 
outline which was offered some years ago, in reply to inquiries 
sent to members of the Gabun and Corisco Mission living at 
Batanga, by the German Government, in its laudable effort to 
adapt, as far as consistent with justice and humanity, its 
Kamerun territorial government to the then existing tribal 
regulations and customs of the tribes living in the Batanga 
region. This information was obtained by various persons 
from several sources, but especially from prominent native 
chiefs, all of them men of intelligence. 

In their general features these statements were largely true 
also for all the other tribes in the Equatorial Coast region, and 
for most of the interior Bantu tribes now pressing down to 
the Coast. They were more distinctly descriptive of Batanga 
and the entire interior at the time of their formulation. But 
in the ten years that have since passed, a stranger would find 
that some of them are no longer exact. Foreign authority 
has removed or changed or sapped the foundations of many 
native customs and regulations, while it has not fully brought 
in the civilization of Christianity. The result in some places, 
in this period of transition, has been almost anarchy, — making 
a despotism, as under Belgian misrule in the so-called Kongo 
" Free " State ; or commercial ruin, as under French monopoly 
in their Kongo-Francais ; and general confusion, under Ger- 
man hands, due to the arbitrary acts of local officials and their 
brutal black soldiery. 

I. The Country. 

The coast between 5° and 4° N. Lat. is called " Kamerun." 
This is not a native word : it was formerly spelled by ships' 
captains in their trade " Cameroons." Its origin is uncer- 
tain. It is thought that it came from the name of the Portu- 
guese explorer Diego Cam. The tribes in that region are the 
Divala, Isubu, Balimba, and other lesser ones. 

The coast from 4° to 3° N. Lat. has also a foreign name, 
" Batanga." I do not know its origin. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 3 

The coast from 3° to 2° N. Lat. is called, by both natives 
and foreigners, " Benita" ; at 1° N., by foreigners, " Corisco," 
and by natives, "Benga." The name " Corisco " was given 
by Spaniards to an island in the Bay of Benga because of the 
brilliant coruscations of lightning so persistent in that locality. 
The Benga dialect is taken as the type of all the many dia- 
lects used from Corisco north to Benita, Bata, Batanga, and 
Kamerun. 

From 1° N. to 3° S. is known as the " Gabun country," 
with the Mpongwe dialect, typical of its many congeners, the 
Orungu, Nkami (miscalled " Camma"), Galwa, and others. 

From 3° S. to the Kongo River, at 6° S., the Loango tribe 
and dialect called " Fyat " are typical ; and the Kongo River 
represents still another current of tribe and dialect. 

In the interior, subtending the entire coast-line as above 
mentioned, are the several clans of the great Fang tribe, mak- 
ing a fifth distinctly different type, known by the names 
"Osheba," "Bulu," " Mabeya," and others. The name 
"Fang" is spelled variously: by the traveller Du Chaillu, 
" Fan " ; by the French traveller, Count de Brazza, " Pa- 
houin " ; by their Benga neighbors, " Pangwe " ; and by the 
Mpongwe, " Mpaiiwe." These tribes all have traditions of 
their having come from the far Northeast. 

Before foreign slave-trade was introduced, and subsequently 
the ivory, rubber, palm-oil, and mahogany trades, the occupa- 
tions of the natives were hunting, fishing, and agriculture. 
They subsisted on wild meats, fish, forest fruits and nuts, and 
the cultivated plantains, cassava, maize, ground-nuts, yams, 
eddoes, sweet potatoes, and a few other vegetables. 

II. The Family. 

The family is the unit in native sociology. There is the 
narrow circle of relationship expressed by the word "ijawe," 
plural " majawe " (a derivative of the verb " jaka " = to beget), 
which includes those of the immediate family, both on the 
father's as well as on the mother's side (i. e., blood-rela- 



4 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

tives). The wider circle expressed by the word "ikaka" 
(pi. " makaka ") includes those who are blood-relatives, to- 
gether with those united to them by marriage. 

In giving illustrative native words I shall use the Benga 
dialect as typical. All the tribes have words indicating the 
relationships of father, mother, brother, sister. A nephew, 
while calling his own father "paia," calls an uncle who is 
older than himself " paia-utodu" ; one younger than himself 
he calls "paia-ndembe." His own mother he calls "ina," 
and his aunts " ina-utodu " and " ina-ndembe, " respectively, 
for one who is older or younger than himself. 

A cousin is called "mwana-paia-utodu," or "-ndembeV 
as the case may be, according to age. These same designa- 
tions are used for both the father's and the mother's side. 
A cousin's consanguinity is considered almost the same as 
that of brother or sister. They cannot marry. Indeed, all 
lines of consanguinity are carried farther, in prohibition of 
marriage, than in civilized countries. 

1. Family Responsibility. Each family is held by the 
community responsible for the misdeeds of its members. 
However unworthy a man may be, his "people" are to 
stand by him, defend him, and even claim as right his acts, 
however unjust. He may demand their help, however guilty 
he may be. Even if his offence be so great that his own 
people have to acknowledge his guilt, they cannot abjure 
their responsibility. Even if he be worthy of death, and 
a ransom is called for, they must pay it: not only his rich 
relatives, but' all who are at all able must help. 

There is a narrower family relationship, that of the house- 
hold, or "diya" (the hearth, or fireplace ; derivative of the 
verb "diyaka " = to live). There are a great many of these. 
Their habitations are built in one street, long or short, accord- 
ing to the size of the man's family. 

In polygamy each wife has a separate house, or at least a 
separate room. Her children's home is in that house. Each 
woman rules her own house and children. 

One of these women is called the " head-wife " (" konde " = 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 5 

queen). Usually she is the first wife. But the man is at 
liberty to displace her and put a younger one in her place. 

The position of head-wife carries with it no special privi- 
leges except that she superintends; but she is not herself 
excused from work. In the community she is given more 
respect if the husband happens to be among the " headmen " 
or chiefs. 

Each wife is supplied by the husband, but does not per- 
sonally own her own house, kitchen utensils, and garden tools. 
She makes her own garden or "plantation" ("mwanga"). 

There is no community in ownership of a plantation. 
Each one chooses a spot for himself. Nor is there land 
tenure. Any man can go to any place not already occu- 
pied, and choose a site on which to build, or to make a 
garden; and he keeps it as long as he or some member of 
his family occupies it. 

2. Family Headship. It descends to a son; if there be 
none, to a brother; or, if he be dead, to that brother's son; 
in default of these, to a sister's son. This headship carries 
with it, for a man, such authority that, should he kill his 
wife, he may not be killed ; though her relatives, if they be 
influential, may demand some restitution. 

If an ordinary man kills another man, he may himself be 
killed. For a debt he may give away a daughter or wife, 
but he may not give away a son or a brother. A father rules 
all his children, male and female, until his death. 

If adult members of a family are dissatisfied with family 
arrangements, they can remove and build elsewhere; but they 
cannot thereby entirely separate themselves from rule by, and 
responsibility to and for the family. 

A troublesome man cannot be expelled from the family 
village. A woman can be, but only by her husband, for 
such offences as stealing, adultery, quarrelling ; in which case 
the dowry money paid by him to her relatives must be re- 
turned to him, or another woman given in her place. 

3. Marital Relations. Marriages are made not only be- 
tween members of the same tribe but between different tribes. 



6 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Formerly it was not considered proper that a man of a coast 
tribe should marry a woman from an interior tribe. The 
coast tribes regarded themselves as more enlightened than 
those of the interior, and were disposed to look down upon 
them. But now men marry women not only of their own 
tribe but of all inferior tribes. 

Polygamy is common, almost universal. A man's addition 
to the number of his wives is limited only by his ability to 
pay their dowry price. 

He may cohabit with a woman without paying dowry for 
her; but their relation is not regarded as a marriage ("diba"), 
and this woman is disrespected as a harlot ("evove "). 

There are few men with only one wife. In some cases 
their monogamy is their voluntary choice; in most cases 
(where there is not Christian principle) it is due to poverty. 
A polygamist arranges his marital duties to his several wives 
according to his choice ; but the division having been made, 
each wife jealously guards her own claim on his attentions. 
A disregard of them leads to many a family quarrel. 1 

If a man die, his brothers may marry any or all of the 
widows ; or, if there be no brothers, a son inherits, and may 
marry any or all of the widows except his own mother. 

It is preferred that widows shall be retained in the family 
circle because of the dowry money that was paid for them, 
which is considered as a permanent investment. 

Ante -ceremonial sexual trials (the ancient German " bun- 
dling") are not recognized as according to rule; but the 
custom is very common. If not followed by regular mar- 
riage ceremony, it is judged as adultery. 

While a man may go to any tribe to seek a wife, he does 
not settle in the woman's tribe ; she comes to him, and enters 
into his family. 

4. Arrangements for Marriage. On entering into marriage 
a man depends on only the male members of his family to 
assist him. If the woman is of adult age, he is first to try 
to obtain her consent. But that is not final; it may be 

1 Gen. xxx. 15-16. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 7 

either overridden or compelled by her father. The fathers 
of the two parties are the ultimate judges; the marriage 
cannot take place without their consent, after the prelimi- 
nary wooing. The final compact is by dowry money, the 
most of which must be paid in advance. It is the custom 
which has come down from old time. It is now slightly 
changing under education, enlightenment, and foreign law. 
The amount of the dowry is not prescribed by any law. 
Custom alters the amount, according to the social status of 
the two families and the pecuniary ability of the bridegroom. 

The highest price is paid for a virgin; the next, for a 
woman who has been put away by some other man ; the lowest 
price for widows. It is paid in instalments, but is supposed 
to be completed in one or two years after the marriage. 

But the purchase of the woman by dowry does not extin- 
guish all claim on her by her family. If she is maltreated, 
she may be taken back by them, in which case the man's 
dowry money is to be returned to him. Not only the 
woman's father, but her other relatives, have a claim to a 
share in the dowry paid for her. Her brothers, sisters, and 
cousins may ask gifts from the would-be husband. 

If a husband die, the widow becomes the property of his 
family; she does not inherit, by right, any of his goods 
because she herself, as a widow, is property. Sometimes 
she is given something, but only as a favor. 

If she runs away or escapes, her father or her family must 
return either her or the dowry paid for her. 

On the death of a woman after her marriage, a part of the 
money received for her is returned to the husband as compen- 
sation for his loss on his investment. If she has borne no 
children, nothing is given or restored to the husband. 

If a woman deserts her husband, her family is required to 
pay back the dowry. If the man himself sends her away, 
the dowry may be repaid on his demand and after a public 
discussion. 

There is no escape from marriage for a woman during her 
life except by repayment of the money received for her. 



8 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Two men may exchange wives thus : each puts away his 
wife, sending her back to her people and receiving in return 
the money paid for her. With this money in hand each 
buys again the wife the other has put away; and all parties 
are satisfied. 

A father can force his daughter to marry against her will; 
but such marriages are troublesome, and generally end in the 
man putting the woman away. 

A daughter may be betrothed by her parents at any time, 
even at birth. The marriage formerly did not take place 
until she was a woman grown of twenty years; now they 
are married at fifteen or sixteen, or earlier. 

Marriage within any degree of consanguinity is forbidden. 
Marriage of cousins is impossible. Disparity of age is no 
hindrance to marriage : an old man may take a young virgin, 
and a young man may take an old woman. 

There are no bars of caste nor rank, except the social 
eminence derived from wealth or free birth. 

Only women are barred from marrying an inferior. That 
inferiority is not a personal one. No personal worth can 
make a man of an inferior tribe equal to the meanest member 
of a superior tribe. 

All coast tribes reckon themselves superior to any interior 
tribe; and, of the coast tribes, a superiority is claimed for 
those who have the largest foreign commerce and the greatest 
number of white residents. 

A man may marry any woman of any inferior tribe, the 
idea being that he thus elevates her; but it is almost un- 
heard of that a woman shall marry beneath her. 

As a result of this iron rule, women of the Mpongwe and 
a few other small " superior " coast tribes being barred from 
many men of their own tribe by lines of consanguinity, and 
unable to marry beneath themselves, expect to and do make 
their marriage alliances with the white traders and foreign 
government officials. Their civilization has made them 
attractive, and they are sought for by white men from far 
distant points. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 9 

Younger sons and daughters must not be married before 
the older ones. 1 

5. Courtship and Wedding. The routine varies greatly 
according to tribe; and in any tribe, according to the man's 
self-respect and regard for conventionalities. A proper out- 
line is : First, the man goes to the father empty-handed to ask 
his consent. The second visit he goes with gifts, and the 
father calls in the other members of the family to witness the 
gifts. On the third visit he goes with liquor (formerly 
the native palm wine, now the foreign trade gin or rum), and 
pays an instalment on the dowry; on the fourth visit with 
his parents, and gives presents to the woman herself. On a 
fifth occasion the mother of the woman makes a feast for the 
mother and friends of the groom. At this feast the host and 
hostess do not eat, but they join in the drinking. Finally, 
the man goes with gifts and takes the woman. Her father 
makes return gifts as a farewell to his daughter. 

On her arrival at the man's village they are met with 
rejoicing, and a dance called "nkanja"; but there is no 
further ceremony, and she is his wife. 

For three months she should not be required to do any 
hard work, the man providing her with food and dress. 
Then she will begin the usual woman's work, in the making 
of a garden and carrying of burdens. 

Weddings may be made in any season of the year. 
Formerly the dry season, or the latter part of the rainy, was 
preferred because of the plentifulness of fish at these periods, 
and the weather being better for outdoor sports and plays. 

The man is expected to visit his wife's family often, and to 
eat with them. Her mother feasts him, and he calls her 
parents to eat at his house. 

6. Dissolution of Marriage. By death of the husband. 
Formerly, in many tribes one or more of the widows were 
put to death, either that the dead might not be without com- 
panionship in the spirit world, or as a punishment for not 
having cared better for him in the preservation of his life. 

1 Gen. xxix. 26. 



10 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Formerly the women mourned for six months; now the 
mourning (i.e., the public wailing) is reduced to one month. 
But signs of mourning are retained for many months in dark, 
old, or scanty dress, and an absence of ornament. 

The mourning of both men and women begins before the 
sick have actually died. The men cease after the burial, 
but the women continue. 

All the dead man's property goes to his male relatives. 
On the death of a wife the husband is expected to make a 
gift to pacify her relatives. Formerly the corpse was not 
allowed to be buried until this gift was made. The demand 
was made by the father, saying, "Our child died in your 
hands; give us ! " Now they make a more quiet request, 
and wait a week before doing so. Something must be given, 
even if the husband had already paid her dowry in full. 

Marriage can be dissolved by divorce at almost any time, 
and for almost any reason, by the man, — by a woman rarely. 
The usual reasons for divorce are unfaithfulness, quarrelling, 
disobedience, and sometimes chronic sickness. There are 
many other more private reasons. In being thus put away 
the woman has no property rights; she is given nothing 
more than what the man may allow as a favor. If the 
woman has children, she has no claim on them ; they belong 
to the father. But if she has daughters who are married, she 
can ask for part of the money which the husband received 
for them. The man and the divorced woman are then 
each free to marry any other parties. 

7. Illegitimate Marital Relations. These are very com- 
mon, but they are not sanctioned as proper. The husband 
demands a fine for his wife's infidelity from the co-respond- 
ent. Cohabitation with the expected husband previous to 
the marriage ceremonies is common ; but it is not sanctioned, 
and therefore is secret. 

The husband of a woman who is mother of a child begotten 
by another man takes it as his own. If it be a girl, he (and 
not the real father) is the person who gives her in marriage 
and retains the dowry. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 11 

8. Domestic Life. No special feast is made for the birth 
of either a son or a daughter, but there is rejoicing. During 
the woman's pregnancy both she and her husband have to 
observe a variety of prohibitions as to what they may eat or 
what they may do. They cohabit up to the time of the 
child's birth; but after that not for a long period, formerly 
three years. Now it is reduced to one and a half years, or 
less. This custom is one of the reasons assigned by men for 
the alleged necessity of a plurality of wives. 

During the confinement and for a short time after the 
birth, the wife remains in the husband's house, and is then 
taken by her parents to their house. 

Deformed and defective children are kept with kindness 
as others; but monstrosities are destroyed. Formerly in 
all tribes twins were regarded as monstrosities and were 
therefore killed, — still the custom in some tribes. In the 
more civilized tribes they are now valued, but special fetich 
ceremonies for them are considered necessary. 

In the former destruction of twins there were tribes that 
killed only one of them. If they were male and female, the 
father would wish to save the boy and the mother the girl ; 
but the father ruled. A motherless new-born infant is not 
deserted; it is suckled by some other woman. 

A portion of the wearing apparel and other goods are placed 
in the coffin with the corpse. The greater part of a man's 
goods are taken by his male relatives. Formerly nothing was 
given to his widow; now she receives a small part. And 
the paternal relatives of the dead man give something to his 
maternal relatives. 

The corpse is buried in various ways, — on an elevated 
scaffold, on the surface of the ground, or in a shallow grave, 
rarely cremated. Formerly the burial could be delayed by a 
claim for settlement of a debt, but this does not now occur. 

No coast tribe eats human flesh. The Fang and other in- 
terior tribes eat any corpse, regardless of the cause of death. 
Families hesitate to eat their own dead, but they sell or 
exchange them for the dead of other families. 



12 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

The name given a child is according to family wish. There 
is no law. Parents like to have their own names trans- 
mitted; but all sorts of reasons prevail for giving common 
names, or for making a new one, or for selecting the name 
of a great person or of some natural object. A child born 
at midday may be called " Joba " (sun), or, at the full moon, 
" Ngande" " (moon). A mother who had borne nine children, 
all of whom had died, on bearing a tenth, and hopeless of its 
surviving, named it " Botombaka " (passing away). 

Circumcision is practised universally by all these tribes. 
An uncircumcised native is not considered to be a man in 
the full sense of the word, — fit for fighting, working, mar- 
rying, and inheriting. He is regarded as nothing by both 
men and women, is slandered, abused, insulted, ostracized, 
and not allowed to marry. 

The operation is not performed in infancy, but is delayed 
till the tenth year, or even later. The native doctor holds 
cayenne pepper in his mouth, and, on completing the opera- 
tion, spits the pepper upon the wound. Then seizing a 
sword, he brandishes it with a shout as a signal to the spectators 
that the act is completed. Then the crowd of men and women 
join in singing* and dancing, and compliment the lad on being 
now "a real man." 

As natives have no records of births, they cannot exactly 
tell the ages of their children, or the time when a youth is fit 
to marry or assume other manly rights ; but by the eighteenth 
or nineteenth year he is regarded with the respect due a man. 
He can marry even as early as fifteen or sixteen. 

There are no tests to which he is subjected as proof of his 
manhood. 

A woman may speak in a court of trial, for defence of 
herself or friends. She may also be summoned as a witness, 
but she has no political rights. 

Aged persons are not put to death, to escape the care of 
them ; they are reasonably well provided for. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 13 



III. Succession to Property and Authority. 

Only men inherit. The children of sisters do not inherit 
unless all the children of the brothers are dead. 

Slaves do not inherit. 

"Chieftains" (those chosen to rule) and "kings" (those 
chosen to the office) inherit more than their brothers, even 
though the ruling one be the younger. 

A woman does not inherit at any time or under any cir- 
cumstances, nor hold property in her own right, even if she 
has produced it by her own labor. 

There is no supremacy in regard to age in the division 
of property. The things to be inherited are women (the 
widows), goods, house, and slaves. An equal division, as 
far as it is possible, is made of all these. 

The dead man's debts are to be paid by the heirs out of 
their inheritance, each one paying his part. There is no 
written will, but it is common for a man to announce his 
intention as to the division while still living. 

IV. Political Organization. 

The coast tribes and some of the interior have so-called 
"kings," who are chosen by their tribe to that office. 

There are family cliques for the accomplishment of a 
desired end, but these are overruled by the tribal king. 

There are headmen in each village with local authority; 
but they too are subject to the king, they having authority 
only in their own village. 

Quarrels and discussions, called " palavers, " are very com- 
mon. (A palaver need not necessarily be a quarrel ; the word 
is derived from a Portuguese verb = "to speak." It comes 
from the old days of slavery; it was the "council" held 
between native chiefs and white slave traders, in the pur- 
chase of a cargo of slaves.) 

The headmen settle disputes about marriage, property 
rights, murders, war, thefts, and so forth. Their decisions 



14 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

may be appealed from to a chief, or carried further to the 
king, whose decision is final. Any one, young and old, 
male and female, may be present during a discussion. 
Usually only chosen persons do the speaking. 

Instead of a question being referred to a chief or king, a 
committee of wise men is sometimes chosen for the occasion. 
Public assemblages are gathered by messengers sent out to 
summon the people. The meeting is presided over by the 
king. 

V. Servants. 

The domestic servants are slaves. Prisoners of war are 
also made to do service; but on the making of peace male 
prisoners are returned to their tribe ; the female prisoners are 
retained and married. Slaves were bought from interior 
tribes. If a male child was born to slave parents, he was 
considered free and could marry into the tribe. If the slave 
mother died, the widower could marry into the tribe. If the 
slave father died, the widow was married by some man of the 
family who owned him. There are no slaves bought or 
sold now, but there is a system of "pawns," — children or 
women given as a pledge for a debt and never redeemed. 
Their position is inferior, and they are servants, but not 
slaves. 

Also, if a prominent person (e.g., a headman) is killed 
in war, the people who killed him are to give a daughter to 
his family, who may marry her to any one they please. 

A pawn may be sent away by the holder to some other 
place, but he cannot be sold or killed ; but the holder may 
beat him if he be obstreperous. 

During slavery days anything earned by a slave was taken 
to his master, who would allow him a share; also, at other 
times, the master would give the slave gifts. The slave 
could do paid labor for foreigners or other strangers, and was 
not necessarily punished if he did not share his wages with 
the master, but he would at least be rebuked for the omis- 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 15 

sion. Women ruled their female slaves. For a slave's minor 
offences, such as stealing, the master was held responsible; 
for grave offences, such as murder, the slave himself was 
killed. 

Certain liberty was allowed a slave; he could attend the 
village or tribal palavers and take part in the discussion. 
If a slave was unjustly treated by some other person, his 
owner could call a council and have the matter talked over, 
and the slave could be allowed to plead his case. 

A slave man could hold property of his own; and if he 
were a worthy, sensible person, he could inherit. 

In a slave's marriage of a woman the custom of gifts, 
feasts, and so forth was the same as for a free man. 

If ill treated, he could run away to another tribe (not to 
any one of his own tribe), and would there be harbored, but 
still as a slave, and would not be given up to his former 
owner. A slave could become free only by his master set- 
ting him free; he could not redeem himself. 

VI. Kingship. 

Kingship has connected with it the great honor that a 
son may inherit it if he is the right kind of man ; but it is 
possible for him to be set aside and another chosen. A son 
may lose his place by foolishness and incompetency. 

Attempts to rule independently of the king are sometimes 
made by cliques composed of three or four young persons of 
the same age, who make laws or customs peculiar to them- 
selves. There is no national recognition of them, nor are 
they given any special privilege. 

Kings have very little power over the fines or property of 
others. These are held, each man for himself; nor have 
they the right of taxation ; but they have power to declare 
war, acting in concert with their people in declaring it and 
waging it. They administer justice as magistrates, decide 
palavers according to the unwritten law of custom, summon 
offenders, and inflict the punishment due. 



16 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Their dwellings differ but little from those of other persons 
of like wealth and personal ability. 

When a palaver is called, the king sits as ruler of the 
meeting and does most of the talking. He provides food 
for those who come from a distance. 

A king may be blamed if a war he has declared ends dis- 
astrously. While a king's son expects to inherit the title 
and power, there is no invariable rule of succession; he can- 
not take the position by force. He must be chosen; but the 
choice is limited to the members of one family, in which it 
is hereditary. 

If the chosen person be a minor, another is selected (but of 
the same family) to act as regent. The "incompetency" 
which could bar a man from kingship, even though in regu- 
lar succession, would be lack of stamina in his character. 
The king-elect must make a feast, to which he is to call all 
the people to eat, drink, and play for twenty days. 

There are no higher state forms among the coast tribes, as 
in civilized lands; no union among tribes; no feudal power 
nor vassals ; no monarchy, nothing absolute ; no taxation, no 
monopoly. Some of the interior tribes formerly had trib- 
utes and kingly monopoly of certain products. 

VII. Fetich Doctors. 

They still exist, but it can scarcely be said that they are a 
class. They have no organization ; they have honor only in 
their own districts, unless they be called specially to minister 
in another place. They have power to condemn to death on 
charge of causing sickness. In their ceremonies they send 
the people to sing, dance, play, and beat drums, and they 
spot their bodies with their "medicines." Any one may 
choose the profession for himself; fetich doctors demand 
large pay for their services. 




Native King in the Niger Delta. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 17 



VIII. Hospitality. 

A stranger is entertained hospitably. He is provided with 
a house and food for two weeks, or as much longer as he may 
wish to stay. On departing he is given a present. His host 
and the village headman are bound to protect him from any 
prosecution while he is their guest, even if he be really 
guilty. 

IX. Judicial System. 

Such a system does not exist. Whatever rules there are 
are handed down as tradition, by word of mouth. There 
are persons who are familiar with these old sayings, prov- 
erbs, examples, and customs, and these are asked to be 
present in the trial of disputed matters. , 

1. Courts, In the righting of any wrong the head of the 
family is to take the first step. If the offenders fail to satisfy 
him, he appeals to the king, who then calls all the people, re- 
hearses the matter to them, and the majority of their votes is 
accepted by the king as the decision. The offenders will not 
dare to resist. 

There is no regular court-house. In almost all villages 
there is a public shed, or " palaver-house, " which is the 
town-hall, or public reception room. But a council may be 
held anywhere, — in the king's house, in the house of one of 
the litigants, on the beach, or under a large shady tree. 

The council is held at any time of day, — not at night. 
There are no regular advocates; any litigant may state his 
own case, or have any one else do it for him. There are no 
fees, except to the king for his summoning of the case. 
There is sometimes betting on the result; though no stakes 
are deposited, the bets are paid. There is not much form 
of court procedure. All the people of a village or district, 
even women and children, according to the importance of 
the case, assemble. While women are generally not al- 
lowed to argue in the case, yet their shouts of approval 

2 



18 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

or protest have influence in the decision, and encourage 
the parties by outspoken sympathy. 

If an accused person does not come voluntarily to court, 
the king's servants are sent to bring him. In the court the 
accused does not need to have some one plead for him, he 
speaks for himself. Accusers speak first, then the accused ; 
the accusers reply, the accused answers; and the king and 
his aged counsellors decide. Witnesses are called from other 
places. As there is no writing among untaught tribes, the 
depositions are by word of mouth. 

Formerly the accused was subjected to the poison ordeal; 
indeed, the accuser also had to take the poison draught as a 
proof of his sincerity, and that his charge was not a libel. 
But this custom is no longer practised on the coast. 

There is no substitution of any kind, except in rare cases. 
A guilty person must bear his own punishment in some way. 

Oaths are common, and are used freely and voluntarily in 
the course of the discussion. A man who utters false testi- 
mony or bears false witness is expected to be thrust out of 
the assembly, but it is not always done. 

When an oath is required, there is no escape from it; he 
who refuses to swear is considered guilty. Sometimes, under 
bravado, he will demand to be given " mbwaye " (the 
poison test), hoping that his demand will not be complied 
with. When the test is produced, he may seek to escape it 
by refusing that particular kind and demanding another not 
readily obtainable. But his attempt at evasion is generally 
regarded as a sign of guilt. 

In court, parties are not obstinate in their opinion; they 
ask for and take advice from others. 

2. Punishment. If it be capital, the accusers are the 
executioners. Death is by various modes, — formerly very 
cruel, e. g., burning, roasting, torturing, amputation by piece- 
meal ; now it is generally by gun, dagger, club, or drowning. 
For a debt that a creditor is seeking to recover, securities 
may be accepted. But if the accused then runs away, the 
person giving the security is tried and punished. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 19 

A creditor does not usually attach the property of the 
debtor, though often, in the interior tribes, a woman is 
seized as hostage. If a long time elapses in deciding the 
matter, the debtor may be held as prisoner until the debt is 
paid. Formerly it was very common for the debtor's family's 
property, or even their persons, to be seized as security; 
and it still is common for a person of the debtor's tribe to be 
caught by the creditor's tribe, and detained until he is re- 
deemed by his own people. 

The king of the prisoner's tribe is called to help release 
him. If the king himself become a captive, his people com- 
bine to collect goods for the payment, and meanwhile give 
other persons in his place to secure his immediate release. 
Sometimes differences are settled in a fight, by a hand-to- 
hand encounter. 

3. Blood Atonement and Fines. Revenge, especially for 
bloodshed, is everywhere practised. It is a duty belong- 
ing first to the "ijawe" (blood-relative), next to the 
"ikaka" (family), next to the "etomba" (tribe). 

The murdered man's own family take the lead, — in case of 
a wife, her husband and his family, and the wife's family; 
sometimes the whole "ikaka"; finally, the "etomba." 

A master seeks revenge for his slave or other servants. 
Formerly it was indifferent who was killed in revenge, so 
that it be some member of the murderer's tribe. Naturally 
that tribe sought to retaliate, and the feud was carried back 
and forth, and would be finally settled only when an equal 
number had been killed on each side, — a person for a 
person: a woman for a man, or vice versa; a child for a 
man or woman, or vice versa. A woman (wife of the man 
killed) does not take the lead in the revenge; his family 
must take the lead, her family must join in. They would 
be despised and cursed if they did not do so. The woman 
herself does not take part in this killing for revenge. 

The avenger of blood may not demit his duty until some 
member of the other tribe has been killed. If a thief has 
been killed for his theft, blood may be taken for his death. 



20 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

But when that one other life is taken, the matter is con- 
sidered settled; it is not carried on as a feud. 

For a life taken by accident, a life is not required; but 
some penalty must be paid, e. g., a woman may be given as a 
wife. But, practically, in former times it was not admitted 
that "accidents" occurred; any misfortune was adjudged 
a fault. 

Formerly even the plea of self-defence was not accepted. 
Even idiotic or otherwise irresponsible persons were held 
responsible, though sometimes they were ransomed by pay- 
ment of a woman and goods. 

At present blood is not always required, but formerly 
no money would have been accepted as a sufficient penalty. 
A man would have been despised for accepting it. There 
was no way of settlement except by bloodshed, — a life for a 
life, — except that, for the life of a woman, a woman and 
goods of a certain amount and kind might be accepted. 
When a woman was thus given for a murdered one, the living 
woman must not be old, but one capable of bearing children. 
Among the acceptable goods were sheep, goats, and pottery. 

A wound or a broken limb is paid for in goods. These 
must come not solely from him who caused the injury; his 
family, as fellow offenders, must assist in paying. 

The man who obtains the woman who is given for a woman 
killed, retains with her also part of the goods given with her, 
and part he shares with the family of the murdered one. If, 
in giving a woman for a murdered one, the offending family 
is unable to furnish also the required goods, they must sell 
another of their women in order to obtain those goods. 
The point is that they must give a woman and goods ; two 
women will not suffice. 

The ceremonies in settlement of a blood-feud are as fol- 
lows : The woman is paid in presence of both parties ; then 
the goods are given, counted, and received. Then both parties 
retire. In the course of a week the parties receiving the 
woman and the goods call the other party, and produce a goat 
and kill it in their presence. It is divided equally, and given 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 21 

half to each party ; and the feud is settled, as by a covenant 
of peace, over the divided goat (Gen. xv. 10). The woman 
thus given in settlement will be married to some one. 

The customs in her marriage are the same as for any other 
woman. Subsequently those who paid her as a fine may 
come and ask a portion of goods for her as a wife. Not that 
they have any claim on her as their daughter ; but the man 
who has married her will give the goods they ask for, under 
the common belief that, unless he does so, the children born 
by her will die early, or at least will not come to years of 
maturity. 

All misdeeds and offences, even capital ones, may be con- 
doned by a fine in goods, excepting only the murder of a man. 
This murderer must forfeit his life. These fines are paid with 
foreign goods, each offence having its own regulation price as 
a punishment. 

In general, the punishment for an injury is the same, 
whether the injured one be rich or poor. A man's " majawe " 
are held responsible if he refuses to make restitution. If they 
also refuse, the offended party await a suitable opportunity, 
and then seize some one and hold him as a hostage until he is 
redeemed, for the price of the original offence, every mite of 
it being then exacted. 

There is no right of asylum to any offender within tho limit 
of his own tribe. In case of a man visiting, for any reason 
whatever, in the limits of another tribe one of whose members 
is a fugitive from justice into the limits of the visitor's tribe, 
this visitor may be seized, and his countrymen asked to ex- 
tradite the criminal staying in their midst. 

Corporal punishment is administered publicly, the towns- 
people being called to witness it, so as to operate on their 
fears and cause them to dread the doing of deeds which may 
bring on them such a penalty. 

4. Punishable Acts. A person is punishable only for an 
injury committed intentionally, not by accident. 

For damages by cattle, the animal may be killed if the 
damage be considerable. The injured party may keep and 



22 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

eat the carcass, and the owner cannot recover for it. In this 
respect animals are treated as human beings, their lives being 
forfeit; and the owner's majawe are held responsible along 
with him. 

Punishments are rated according to the degree of the crime, 
in the order theft, adultery, rape, murder. Insults are not 
punishable by law ; the insulted insults in return. If a fight 
results, and wounds are made during the fight, no fine is 
required. 

Kidnapping, incest, and abortion are not known. 

Under the slight duty owed to kings, treason can scarcely 
be said to exist. Its equivalent, the betrayal of tribal interests, 
is publicly rebuked, and a curse laid on the offender. If he 
be a servant, he is beaten and sent away. 

The disturber of the peace of a wedding is expected to 
express regret, but no calamity will follow because of the 
disturbance. The offence is not common. 

X. Tebmtorial Relations. 

The tribes have fixed settlements wherever foreign govern- 
ments have not taken possession. Each man may choose for 
a garden a place that has not been already occupied. The 
land is common property for the tribe. But each ijawe may 
choose a separate place for itself. 

No man of a tribe has any claim on the soil other than is 
common to any other man of that tribe. He has, however, a 
claim greater than any stranger. 

1. Tenure. Land is held as common property; it is not 
bought or sold to a fellow-tribeman. It may be bought from 
the confines of another tribe, and it is sold to foreigners. 
A hunter is free to go anywhere, even into the territory of 
an adjacent tribe. If he kills game there, he does not have 
to divide. Bee trees and honey are free to any one. The sea 
is free for fishing only to the coast tribes. 

Every woman has a separate garden; even the wives of 
polygamists do not have gardens in common. 

Soil is free. A family, however, may settle in a limited 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 23 

district, and claim it as theirs as long as they live there ; or, 
leaving it temporarily, if they return after a reasonable time, 
they may still claim it. They temporarily mark their places 
by trees or stones, as boundary lines. But there is nothing 
permanent. They prove their right to it by residing on it 
or making a garden from time to time. But their claim may 
be lost if the entire family leave it and go elsewhere. Such 
a place being vacated, and some one else wishing to occupy 
it, permission may be granted on formal application to the 
king. But if an occupant has deserted a place, and no one 
else has applied for it, he can resume it as his even after 
the lapse of years. 

Dwellers on any ground have right to all the trees of 
fruitage on it, e. g., palm-nuts, and other natural wild edible 
nuts. Wells are never dug. People depend on springs and 
streams. Springs are free, even though they be on land 
claimed by others. 

A man assists his wife in the clearing of the forest for a 
garden plot ; but she and her servants attend to the planting, 
weeding, and other working of the garden itself. 

2. Mights in Movables. The tenant dweller on any par- 
ticular lot of ground owns everything on it, except the ground 
itself. If a foreigner buy a piece of ground, he may or may 
not buy the houses, and so forth, according to agreement. 
The movables on any ground are houses, trees, and any 
vegetables planted. 

XL Exchange Relations. 

There is no coin or metal currency, except among the 
coast tribes, where foreign governments have introduced it. 
Foreign trade-goods are everywhere the medium of purchase 
and exchange. But there is a sort of currency, in the shape 
of iron spear-heads and other forms resembling miniature 
hatchets, a certain number of which are given by interior 
tribes in the purchase of a wife. They are used only for this 
purpose, and are exchanged by the parties themselves for the 
foreign goods required in the dowry. 



24 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

They are manufactured by any village blacksmith from 
imported iron. They are not received or recognized by white 
traders. 

Formerly cowry shells were used, even by foreign traders, 
as a currency; and they are still so used in the Sudan. But 
in all coast tribes purchase and sale are effected by foreign- 
made calico prints, pottery, cutlery, guns, powder, rum, and 
a great variety of other goods. 

The natural products of the country — ivory, rubber, 
palm-oil, dyewoods — and many other native unmanufac- 
tured articles are exchanged for these goods. The natural 
products belong to the men. If a woman should find ivory, 
she cannot sell it ; it belongs to her husband to barter it. 

Contracts are confirmed in various ways in different tribes. 
A common mode is to eat and drink together, as a sign that 
the bargain is closed ; and it will not be broken. A contract 
cannot be broken after the price is agreed upon, even if only 
a part of the price is paid ; the remainder is to be paid in 
instalments. 

If one overreaches another in a trade, he must take back 
the imperfect article or add to it. This is true, according to 
native law, among themselves. Any amount of overreaching 
and deception is practised toward foreigners in a trade, or to 
members of another tribe ; and many foreigners are just as 
guilty in their dealings with the natives. 

Loans of trade-goods are constantly made, but the taking 
of interest therefor is not known. If a borrowed article, such 
as a canoe, is broken or lost, a new canoe must be given in 
its place. If the canoe is only injured and had been in want 
of repair, the borrower, on returning it, must repair it and 
also pay some goods. One going as surety for goods is held 
responsible. 

Pawning of goods is commonly practised everywhere. 

People are generous in making gifts to friends, or donations 
to the needy ; but if a man who has been helped in time of 
distress subsequently increases in wealth, the one who helped 
him may demand a return of the original gift. 



CONSTITUTION OF NATIVE SOCIETY 25 

XII. Religion. 

Religion is intimately mixed with every one of these afore- 
mentioned sociological aspects of family, rights of property, 
authority, tribal organization, judicial trials, punishments, 
intertribal relations, and commerce. 

Mr. R. E. Dennett, residing in Loango, has made a careful 
and philosophic investigation into the religious ideas of the Ba- 
Vili or Fyat nation and adjacent tribes bordering on the Kongo. 
The result of his research shows that the native tribal govern- 
ment and religious and social life are inseparably united. He 
claims to have discovered a complex system of " numbers " 
and " powers " showing the Loango people to be more highly 
organized politically than are the equatorial tribes, and re- 
vealing a very curious co-relation of those " numbers," 
governing the physical, rational, and moral natures, with con- 
science and with God. 

Some traces of the " numbers with meanings " are found in 
Yoruba, where, as described by Mr. Dennett, the division of 
the months of the year, the names of lower animals typical of 
the senses, and the powers of earth that speak to us represent 
religious ideas and relations. They err, therefore, who, as su- 
perficial observers, would brush away all these native views 
as mere superstition. They are more than mere superstition ; 
though indeed very superstitious, they point to God. 

The particular exponent of religious worship, the fetich, 
governs the arrangements of all such relations. It will be 
discussed as to its origin and the details of its use in the 
subsequent chapters. 



CHAPTER II 

THE IDEA OF GOD— RELIGION 

MISSIONARY PAUL of Tarsus, in the polite exordium 
of his great address to the Athenian philosophers on 
Mars Hill, courteously tells them that he believes them to be 
a very " religious " people, — indeed, too much so in their 
broad-church willingness to give room for an altar to the 
worship of any new immanence of God ; and then, with equal 
courtesy, he tells them that, with all their civilization, with 
all their eminence in art and philosophy, they were, igno- 
rant of the true character of a greater than any deity in their 
pantheon. 

Modern missionaries, also, in studying the beliefs and forms 
of worship of the heathen nations among whom they dwell, 
while they may be shocked at the immoralities, cruelties, or 
absurdities of the special cult they are investigating, have to 
acknowledge that its followers, in their practice of it, exhibit 
a devotion, a persistence, and a faithfulness worthy of Chris- 
tian martyrs. They are very "religious." Verily, if the 
obtaining of heaven and final salvation rested only on sincerity 
of belief and consistency of practice, the multitudinous fol- 
lowers of the so-called false religions would have an assurance 
greater than that of many professors of what is known as 
Christianity, and much of the occupation of the Christian 
missionary would be gone. 

I say much ; but not all, by any means. For the feeling 
with which I was impressed on my very first contact with the 
miseries of the sociology of heathenism, entirely aside from 
its theology and any question of salvation in a future life, has 
steadily deepened into the conviction that, even if I were not a 



THE IDEA OF GOD 27 

Christian, I still ought to, and would, do and bear and suffer 
whatever God has called or allowed me to suffer or bear 
or do since 1861 in my proclamation of His gospel, simply 
for the sake of the elevation of heathen during their present 
earthly life from the wrongs sanctioned by or growing out 
of their religion. Distinctly is it true that "Godliness is 
profitable unto all things," not only for the life " which is to 
come," but also for " the life that now is." Those in Christian 
lands who have no sympathy for, or who refuse to take any 
interest in, what are known as u Foreign Missions," err egre- 
giously in their failure to recognize the indisputable fact 
that they themselves are debtors for their possession of pro- 
tected life, true liberty, and unoppressed pursuit of personal 
happiness, not to civilization as such, but to the form of reli- 
gious belief called Christianity, which made that civilization 
possible. And by just so much as divine law has ordained 
us each our brother's keeper, we are bound to share the 
blessings of the gospel with those whom God has made of 
one blood with us in the brotherhood of humanity. 

A pursuit of this line of thought would lead me into an ar- 
gument for the duty of foreign missions. That is not the 
direct object of these pages. True, I pray that, as a result of 
any reader's following me in this study of African supersti- 
tion, his desire will be deepened to give to Africa the pure 
truth in place of its falsity. But the special object of my pen, 
in following a certain thread of truth, is to show how degrad- 
ingly false is that falsity, in its lapse from God, even though I 
accord it the name of religion. 

For my present purpose it is sufficiently accurate to define 
theology as that department of knowledge which takes cog- 
nizance of God, — His being, His character, and His relation 
to His Cosmos. Whenever any intelligent unit in that Cosmos 
looks up to Him as something greater than itself, under what 
Schleiermacher describes as "a sense of infinite dependence," 
and utters its need, it has expressed its religion. It may be 
weak, superstitious, and mixed with untruth; nevertheless, 
it is religion. 



28 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

When a study of God and the thoughts concerning Him 
crystallize into a formula of words expressing a certain belief, 
it is definitely a creed. When, under a human necessity, 
a creed clothes itself in certain rites, ceremonies, and for- 
mulas of practice, it is a worship. That worship may be 
fearful in its cruelty or ridiculous in its frivolity ; neverthe- 
less, it is a worship. Worship is essential to the vitality of 
religion ; without it religion is simply a theory. 

Theology differentiates itself from other departments of 
knowledge, as to its source and its effects. For instance, in 
the study of geography, as to its effects, it is comparatively a 
matter of indifference whether we believe that the earth is 
flat or globular, like Booker T. Washington's teacher who 
in his district school was prepared to teach either, "accord- 
ing to the preference of a majority of his patrons " ; or, in 
astronomy, whether we believe that the sun is the stationary 
centre of our planetary system, or whether, with the late 
Rev. John Jasper, we assert that the sun " do move " around 
our earth. 

But in theology it matters enormously for this present 
life, whether we believe the supreme object of our worship 
to be Moloch, and infinitely for our future life, whether Jesus 
be to us the Son of God. 

As to the source of theological knowledge, all our other 
knowledge is evolved, systematized, and developed by 
patient experiment and investigation. The results of any 
particular branch of human knowledge are cumulative, and 
are enlarged and perfected from generation to generation. 
But the source of our knowledge of God is not in us, any 
more than our spiritual life had its source in ourselves. It 
came ah extra. God breathed into the earthly form of Adam 
the breath of life, and he became a living creature, essentially 
and radically different from the beasts over which he was 
given dominion. Knowledge of God was thus an original, 
donated, component part of us. It grew under revelations 
made during the angelic communications before the Fall. 
Revelation was continued by the Logos along thousands of 



THE IDEA OF GOD 29 

years, until that Logos himself became flesh and dwelt 
among us in visible form in His written word, and by His 
Comforter, who still reveals to us. 

I do not feel it necessary here to discuss, or even to ex- 
press an opinion as to the evolution of the physical species. 
I know, simply because God says so, — and am satisfied with 
this knowledge, — that "in the beginning God created." As 
to when that " beginning " was, there may be respectable dif- 
ference of opinion; for it is only a human opinion that 
asserts when. Assertion may have apparently very reliable 
data ; but these data often are like the bits of glass, factors 
in the geometric figures of a kaleidoscope, whose next turn 
in scientific discovery dislocates and relocates in an apparently 
reliable proof of the existence of another figure. 

As to what it was that God created in that begin- 
ning, there may be also respectable difference of opinion. 
Whether, like Minerva, full armed from the head of Jove, 
Adam sprang into his perfect physical, mental, and moral 
manhood on the sixth of consecutive days of twenty-four 
solar hours each; or whether, created a weakling, he slowly 
grew up to perfect development ; or whether life began only 
in protoplasm, and gradually differentiated itself into the 
forms of beasts, and finally into that of man, — back of all 
was a great First Cause that "created " in the "beginning." 
It is all a subject fearfully wonderful. 

" My substance was not hid from Thee when I was made 
in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the 
earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unper- 
fect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which 
in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none 
of them." 

But all such assertion, discussion, and attempt at proof I 
allow only to what is physical and finite, and is therefore a 
legitimate subject of assertion on merely physical data; for 
I do not desire to discuss, beyond simple mention, the Spen- 
cerian doctrine of evolution, that materialism which would 
make thought and soul only successions in a series (even if 



30 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

the highest and best) of evoluted developments. To account 
for the religious nature in man by evolution I regard as a 
thing that cannot be done. It is a tenable position held by 
evolutionists such as Dana, Winchell, and the late Professor 
Le Conte of California, that "at the creation of man the 
divine fiat asserted itself, and ' breathed into man the breath 
of life, and man became a living soul. ' Immortality cannot 
be evolved out of mortality. If Spencerian evolution is true, 
either everything is immortal or nothing is immortal; man 
and vermin in this hypothesis go together." 

Man's soul came to him direct from God, a part of His 
own infinite life, in His "image," and like Him in His holi- 
ness. Man's thoughts of God were holy. The expression 
of them in words and acts was his practical religion, the 
visible, audible link that " bound " (ligated) him to God. In 
this there could be no evolution, unless that, in the many 
forms and ceremonies used in the expression of religious 
thought (which ceremonies constitute worship), there could 
be, and were, variation, change, development, or retrogression. 

Therefore I cannot accept the conclusions of those who 
in their study of ethnology claim to find that the religious 
beliefs of the world, and even the very idea of a Supreme 
Being, have been evolved by man himself ah intra. They 
claim that this evolution has been by primitive man, from 
low forms of beliefs in spiritual beings, through polytheism 
and idolatry, up to the conception of monotheism and its 
belief in the one living God. This process they claim to be 
able to follow on lines racial and national, under the civil- 
izations of Chaldee, Greek, Roman, Teutonic, and other stocks. 

" Until some human being can be found with a conception 
of spiritual existences without his having received instruc- 
tion on that point from those who went before him, the claim 
. . . that primitive man ever obtained his spiritual knowl- 
edge or his spiritual conceptions from within himself alone, 
or without an external revelation to him, is an unscientific 
assumption in the investigation of the origin of religions in 
the world." 1 

1 Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. 311. 



THE IDEA OP GOD 31 

The rather I find, in my own ethnological observations 
during these more than forty years in direct contact with 
aboriginal peoples, that the initial starting-point of man's 
knowledge of God was by revelation from Jehovah himself. 
This knowledge was to be conserved by man's conscience, 
God's implanted witness, — a witness that can be coerced 
into silence, that may be nursed into forgetfulness, that 
may be perverted by abuse, that may be covered up by 
superimposed falsities, that may be discolored by the black- 
ness of foul degradation, but which can never be utterly 
destroyed; which on occasions, like the Titans, arouses it- 
self with volcanic force; which at God's final bar is to 
be His sufficient proof for the verities and responsibilities of 
at least natural religion ("natural" religion, a recognition 
of certain attributes of God as revealed in the works of 
nature). This knowledge of God, a treasure hid in earthen 
vessels, rightly used and cherished, was to grow and de- 
velop under subsequent divine revelation, so that man might 
become more and more like his divine original ; or, if abused, 
neglected, or perverted, it would carry him even farther 
away from God. 

" Not alone those who insist on the belief that there was a 
gradual development of the race from a barbarous beginning, 
but also those who believe that man started on a higher 
plane, and in his degradation retained vestiges of God's 
original revelation to him, are finding profit in the study 
of primitive myths, and of aboriginal rites and ceremonies 
all the world over." 1 

I do not impeach the sincerity o# those students of primi- 
tive thought who teach that man in his religious beliefs has 
reached his present monotheism by progressive growths from 
polytheism, or that he has attained his present conception 
of the very existence of a Supreme Being by a gradual 
emergence from a state of ignorance in which even the 
idea of such a being did not exist; but I do discount the 

1 Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. 4. 



32 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

competency of many of the witnesses on whose testimony 
they base their conclusions. 

Whatever may be proved in a complete investigation by 
science into the arcana of nature, — of archeology and other 
channels of research, — a reverent comparison of these re- 
sults of finite intelligence will find them not inconsistent 
with the statements of God's infinite Word. Indeed, that 
Word was not written to make any definite statement on 
astronomy or geology, or any other human science. The 
only science of the Bible is that of man's relation to his 
divine Father; its only history a history of redemption, as 
promised to Eve and her seed, the Jewish nation, and as 
fulfilled in the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Apparent con- 
flicts of the Bible with science are not always real; too 
often a claim is set up, based on a single observation, per- 
haps hastily made, and not verified by a comparison of the 
variable factors in that observation. 

I suppose that it is true that in the theology of even 
the worst forms of religion there is more or less truth, 
and almost equally true that in the theology of the best 
forms there may be somewhat of superstition. This is so 
because, as I believe, all religions had but one source, and 
that a pure one. From it have grown perversions varying 
in their proportion of truth and error. 

In this study of the African theologic ideas I shall 
endeavor to separate these two — the false and the true — 
into two divisions: First, Beliefs in God more or less true, 
which have had their birth in tradition of some divine reve- 
lation, which find at least faint echoes in human conscience, 
and which among exalted nations would be formulated into 
confessions, creeds, and articles of faith. Second, Ani- 
mism or beliefs in vague spiritual beings, which, being 
almost pure superstitions, cannot, from their very nature, 
be accurately formulated, the}^ being the outgrowth of every 
individual's imagination, and varying with all the variances 
of time, place, and human thought. 

Eliminating from any theology its superstitious element, 



THE IDEA OF GOD 33 

we shall find the highest and truest religion. But if you 
eliminate from the theology of the Bantu African its' 
superstition, you will have very little left; for, among the 
religions of the world, it comes nearest to being purely a 
superstition. So nearly is this true that travellers and 
other superficial observers and theorists have asserted that 
the religious beliefs of some degraded tribes were simply 
superstitions, destitute of reference to any superior being. 

I can readily see how the reports of some travellers — even 
of those who had no prejudice against the Negro, the precepts 
of the Bible, or missionary work — could be made in apparent 
sincerity, when they state that native Africans have con- 
fessed of themselves that they had no idea of God's exist- 
ence; also, their belief that some pygmy and other tribes 
were too destitute of intelligence to possess that idea, — that 
it either must be given them ah extra by the possessors of a 
superior civilization, or must be developed by themselves as 
they rise in civilization. 

The difficulty about the testimony of these witnesses in this 
matter is that, being passers-by in time, they were unable — 
by reason of lack of ability to converse fluently, or absence 
of a reliable interpreter, or of being out of touch with 
native mode of thought or speech — to make their question- 
ings intelligible. 

On the heathen side, also, the obsequious natives, un- 
accustomed to analytic thought, will answer vaguely on 
the spur of the moment, and often as far as possible in 
the line of what they suppose will best please the ques- 
tioner. All native statements must be discounted, must be 
sifted. 

I am aware that some missionaries are quoted as having 
said or written that the people among whom they were 
laboring "had no idea of God." Even Robert Moffat is 
reported to have held this opinion. If so, it must have 
been in the earlier ckays of his ministry, under his first 
shock at the depth of native degradation, before he had 
become fluent in the native language, and before he had 



34 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

found out all the secrets of that difficult problem, an Afri- 
can's native thought. Such an unqualified phrase could be 
uttered by a missionary in an hour of depression, in the 
presence of some great demonstration of heathen wicked- 
ness, and in an effort to describe how very far the heathen 
was from God. That the heathen had no correct idea of 
God is often true. 

Arnot, who among modern African missionaries has lived 
most closely and intimately with the rudest tribes in their 
veriest hovels, writes : 1 " Man is a very fragile being, and he 
is fully conscious that he requires supernatural or divine aid. 
Apart from the distinct revelation given by God in the first 
chapter of Romans, there is much to prove that the heathen 
African is a man to whom the living God has aforetime re- 
vealed himself. But he had sought after things of his own 
imagination and things of darkness to satisfy those convic- 
tions and fears which lurk in his breast, and which have not 
been planted there by the Evil One, but by God. Refusing 
to acknowledge God, 2 they have become haters of God. 3 The 
preaching of the gospel to them, however, is not a mere beat- 
ing of the air; there is a peg in the wall upon which some- 
thing can be hung and remain. Often a few young men 
have received the message with laughter and ridicule, but 
I have afterwards heard them discuss my words amongst 
themselves very gravely. I heard one man say to a neigh- 
bor, ' Monare's words pierce the heart.' Another remarked 
that the story of Christ's death was very beautiful, but that 
he knew it was not meant for him ; he was a ' makala ' 
(slave), and such a sacrifice was only for white men and 
princes." 

Lionel Decle, 4 who certainly is not prejudiced toward 
missionaries or the Negro, writes of the Barotse tribe in 
South Africa and their worship of ancestors: "They be- 
lieve in a Supreme Being, Niambe, who is supposed to 
come and take away the spiritual part of the dead." This 



1 Garenganze, p. 79. 2 Rom. i. 28, margin. 

8 Rom. i. 30. 4 Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 



74. 



THE IDEA OF GOD 35 

name "Niambe," for the Deity, is almost exactly the same as 
"Anyambe," in Benga, two thousand miles distant. 

Illustrative of traveller Decle's haste or inexactitude in 
the use of language, he apparently contradicts himself on 
page 153, in speaking of a tribe, the Matabele, adjacent 
to the Barotse: "The idea of a Supreme Being is utterly 
foreign, and cannot be appreciated by the native mind. 
They have a vague idea of a number of evil spirits always 
ready to do harm, and chief among these are the spirits of 
their ancestors; but they do not pray to them to ask for 
their help if they wish to enter on any undertaking. They 
merely offer sacrifices to appease them when some evil has 
befallen the family." 

Perhaps he and other cursory travellers, in making such 
hasty assertions, mean that the native has no idea of the true 
character of God ; in that they would be correct. 

The accounts which some travellers have given of tribes 
without religion I either set down to misunderstanding, or 
consider them to be insufficient to invalidate the assertion 
that religion is a universal feature of savage life. 

However degraded, every people have a religion. But 
they are children, babes in the woods, lost in the forest of 
ignorance, dense and more morally malarious than Stanley's 
forest of Urega. In their helplessness, under a feeling of 
their "infinite dependence," they cry out in the night of 
their orphanage, " Help us, O Paia Njambe ! " Their fore- 
fathers wandered so far from him that only a name is left by 
which to describe the All-Father, whose true character has 
been utterly forgotten, — so forgotten that they rarely wor- 
ship him, but have given such honor and reverence as they 
do render literally to the supposed spiritual residents in 
stocks and stones. "Lo! this only have I found, that 
God hath made man upright; but they have sought out 
many inventions." 

Offering in the following pages a formulation of African 
superstitious beliefs and practice, I premise that I have 
gathered them from a very large number of native witnesses, 



36 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

very few of whom presented to me all the same ideas. 
Any one else, inquiring of other natives in other places, 
would not find, as held by every one of them, all that I 
have recorded; but parts of all these separate ideas will be 
found held by separate individuals everywhere. 

After more than forty years' residence among these tribes, 
fluently using their language, conversant with their customs, 
dwelling intimately in their huts, associating with them in 
the varied relations of teacher, pastor, friend, master, fellow- 
traveller, and guest, and, in my special office as missionary, 
searching after their religious thought (and therefore being 
allowed a deeper entrance into the arcana of their soul than 
would be accorded to a passing explorer), I am able unhesi- 
tatingly to say that among all the multitude of degraded 
ones with whom I have met, I have seen or heard of none 
whose religious thought was only a superstition. 

Standing in the village street, surrounded by a company 
whom their chief has courteously summoned at my request, 
when I say to him, "I have come to speak to your people," 
I do not need to begin by telling them that there is a God. 
Looking on that motley assemblage of villagers, — the bold, 
gaunt cannibal with his armament of gun, spear, and dagger; 
the artisan with rude adze in hand, or hands soiled at the 
antique bellows of the village smithy; women who have 
hasted from their kitchen fire with hands white with the 
manioc dough or still grasping the partly scaled fish ; and 
children checked in their play with tiny bow and arrow or 
startled from their dusty street pursuit of dog or goat, — I 
have yet to be asked, "Who is God?" 

Under the slightly varying form of Anyambe, Anyambie,, 
Njambi, Nzambi, Anzam, Nyam, or, in other parts, Ukuku, 
Suku, and so forth, they know of a Being superior to 
themselves, of whom they themselves inform me that he is 
the Maker and Father. The divine and human relations of 
these two names at once give me ground on which to stand 
in beginning my address. 

If suddenly they should be asked the flat question, " Do 



THE IDEA OF GOD 37 

you know Anyambe ? " they would probably tell any 
white visitor, trader, traveller, or even missionary, under 
a feeling of their general ignorance and the white man's 
superior knowledge, " No ! What do we know ? You are 
white people and are spirits; you come from Njambi's town, 
and know all about him ! " (This will help to explain, 
what is probably true, that some natives have sometimes 
made the thoughtless admission that they "know nothing 
about a God.") I reply, "No, I am not a spirit; and, while 
I do indeed know about Anyambe, I did not call him by 
that name. It 's your own word. Where did you get it?" 
"Our forefathers told us that name. Njambi is the One- 
who-made-us. He is our Father." Pursuing the conversa- 
tion, they will interestedly and voluntarily say, " He made 
these trees, that mountain, this river, these goats and 
chickens, and us people." 

That typical conversation I have had hundreds of times, 
under an immense variety of circumstances, with the most 
varied audiences, and before extremes of ignorance, sav- 
agery, and uncivilization, utterly barring out the admission 
of a probability that the tribe, audience, or individual in 
question had obtained a previous knowledge of the name 
by hearsay from adjacent more enlightened tribes. For 
the name of that Great Being was everywhere and in every 
tribe before any of them had become enlightened; varied in 
form in each tribe by the dialectic difference belonging to 
their own, and not imported from others, — for, where tribes 
are hundreds of miles apart or their dialects greatly differ, 
the variation in the name is great, e.g., "Suku," of the Bihe 
country, south of the Kongo River and in the interior back 
of Angola, and " Nzam " of the cannibal Fang, north of the 
equator. 

But while it is therefore undeniable that a knowledge of 
this Great Being exists among the natives, and that the belief 
is held that he is a superior and even a supreme being, that 
supremacy is not so great as what we ascribe to Jehovah. 
Nevertheless, I believe that the knowledge of their An- 



38 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

zam or Anyambe has come down — clouded though it be 
and fearfully obscured and marred, but still a revelation — 
from Jehovah Himself. Most of the same virtues which 
we in our enlightened Christianity commend, and many of 
the vices which we denounce, they respectively commend 
and denounce. No one of them praises to me theft or false- 
hood or murder. They speak of certain virtues as "good," 
and of other things which are "bad," though, just as do the 
depraved of Christian lands, they follow the vices they con- 
demn. True, certain evils they do defend, e. g. (as did some 
of our New England ancestors) witchcraft executions, justi- 
fying them as judicial acts ; and polygamy, considering it (as 
our civilized Mormons) a desirable social iustitution (but, 
unlike the Mormons, not claiming for it the sanction of re- 
ligion); and slavey, regarded (as only a generation ago in 
the United States ) as necessary for a certain kind of property. 
But theft, falsehood, and some other sins, when committed 
by others, their own consciences condemn, — closely covered 
up and blunted as those consciences may be, — thus witness- 
ing with and for God. 

While all this is true, their knowledge of God is almost 
simply a theory. It is an accepted belief, but it does not 
often influence their life. "God is not in all their thought." 
In practice they give Him no worship. God is simply 
"counted out." 

Resuming my street-preaching conversation: Immediately 
after the admission by the audience of their knowledge of 
Anzam as the Creator and Father, I say, " Why then do 
you not obey this Father's commands, who tells you to do 
so and so ? Why do you disobey his prohibitions, who for- 
bids you to do so and so? Why do you not worship him?" 
Promptly they reply : " Yes, he made us ; but, having made 
us, he abandoned us, does not care for us; he is far from 
us. Why should we care for him? He does not help nor 
harm us. It is the spirits who can harm us whom we fear 
and worship, and for whom we care." 

Another witness on this subject is the Rev. Dr. J. L. 



THE IDEA OF GOD 39 

Wilson. 1 Speaking of Africa and its Negro inhabitants, he 
says : " The belief in one great Supreme Being is universal. 
Nor is this idea held imperfectly or obscurely developed in 
their minds. The impression is so deeply engraved upon 
their moral and mental nature that any system of atheism 
strikes them as too absurd and preposterous to require a 
denial. Everything which transpires in the natural world 
beyond the power of man or of spirits, who are supposed to 
occupy a place somewhat higher than man, is at once and 
spontaneously ascribed to the agency of God. All the tribes 
in the country with which the writer has become acquainted 
(and they are not few) have a name for God; and many of 
them have two or more, significant of His character as a Maker, 
Preserver, and Benefactor. (In the Grebo country Nyiswa is 
the common name for God; but He is sometimes called Geyi, 
indicative of His character as Maker. In Ashanti He has two 
names : viz. , Yankumpon, which signifies ' My Great Friend, ' 
and Yemi, 'My Maker.') The people, however, have no 
correct idea of the character or attributes of the Deity. 
Destitute of (a written) revelation, and without any other 
means of forming a correct conception of His moral nature, 
they naturally reason up from their own natures, and, in 
consequence, think of Him as a being like themselves. 

" Nor have they any correct notion of the control which God 
exercises over the affairs of the world. The prevailing notion 
seems to be that God, after having made the world and filled 
it with inhabitants, retired to some remote corner of the uni- 
verse, and has allowed the affairs of the world to come under 
the control of evil spirits ; and hence the only religious wor- 
ship that is ever performed is directed to these spirits, the 
object of which is to court their favor, or ward off the evil 
effects of their displeasure. 

" On some rare occasions, as at the ratification of an impor- 
tant treaty, or when a man is condemned to drink the ' red- 
water ordeal,' the name of God is solemnly invoked; and, 
what is worthy of note, is invoked three times with marked 

1 Western Africa, p. 209. 



40 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

precision. Whether this involves the idea of a Trinity we 
shall not pretend to decide; but the fact itself is worthy of 
record. Many of the tribes speak of the 'Son of God.' 
The Grebos call him ' Greh,' and the Ainina people, accord- 
ing to Pritchard, call him 'Sankombum.' " 

The following testimony I gather from conversations with 
the late Rev. Ibia j'Ikenge, a native minister and member 
of the Presbytery of Corisco, who himself was born in 
heathenism. He stated: 

That his forefathers believed in many inferior agencies 
who are under the control of a Superior Being; that they 
were therefore primitive monotheists. Under great emer- 
gencies they looked beyond the lower beings, and asked help 
of that Superior; before doing so, they prayed to him, im- 
ploring him as Father to help; • 

That the people of this country believed God made the 
world and everything in it; but he did not know whether 
they had had any ideas about creation from dust of the 
ground or in God's likeness; 

That they believed in the existence, in the first times, of 
a great man, who had simply to speak, and all things were 
made by the word of his power. As to man's creation, a 
legend states it thus: Two eggs fell from on high. On strik- 
ing the ground and breaking, one became a man and the other 
a woman. (Apparently there is no memory of any legend 
indicating the name, character, or work of the Holy Spirit.) 

That there is a legend of a great chief of a village who 
always warned people not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree. 
Finally, he himself ate of it and died ; 

That there was no legend, but, among a few persons, a 
vague tradition of a once happy period, and of a coming time 
of good; but he knew of nothing corresponding to the story 
of Cain and Abel; 

That there is a fable that a woman brought to the people 
of her village the fruit of a forbidden tree. In order to hide 
it she swallowed it; and she became possessed of an evil 
spirit, which was the beginning of witchcraft; 



THE IDEA OF GOD 41 

That there was some tradition of a Deluge (he was not 
aware of any about the Dispersion at the Tower of Babel); 

That all men believed they were sinners, but that they 
knew of no remedy for sin; 

That sacrifices are made constantly, their object being to 
appease the spirits and avert their anger; 

That many of the tribes are, and probably all, before 
they emerged on the seacoast, were cannibal (of the origin 
of cannibalism he did not know, but he was certain it had 
no religious idea associated with it a ) ; 

That there was a legend that a " Son " of God, by name 
Ilongo ja Anyambe, was to come and deliver mankind from 
trouble and give them happiness ; but as he had not as yet 
come, the heathen were no longer expecting him; 

That there was a division of time, six months, making an 
"upuma," or year, and a rest day, which came two^days after 
the new moon, and was called Buhwa bwa Mandanda, — it 
was a day for dancing and feasting; 

That the dead were usually buried; but persons held in 
superstitious reverence, as twins, Udinge, etc., were not 
buried, but left at the foot of a ceiba, or silk-cotton tree, or 
other sacred tree ; 

That burial-places are regarded with a mixed feeling of 
reverence and awe; 

That the immortality of the soul is believed in, but that 
there is no tradition of the resurrection of the body; 

That they believe God gave law to mankind, and that, for 
those who keep this law, there is reserved in the future a 
"good place," and for the bad a "bad place," but no definite 
ideas about what that " good " or that " bad " will be, or as to 
the locality of those places ; 

That they believe in a distinction of spirits, — that some are 
demons, as in the old days of demoniacal possession, this dis- 
tinction following the Jewish idea of diaboloi and daimonai. 

1 1 am strongly disposed to think that, in its origin, there was a sacrificial 
idea connected with cannibalism. — R. H. N. 



CHAPTER III 

POLYTHEISM — IDOLATRY 

CIVILIZATION and religion do not necessarily move 
with equal pace. Whatever is really best in the ethics 
of civilization is derived from religion. If civilization falls 
backward, religion probably has already weakened or will 
also fall. The converse is not necessarily true. Religion may 
halt or even retrograde, while civilization steps on brilliantly, 
as it did in Greece with her Parthenon, and in Rome the 
while that religion added to the number of idols in the pan- 
theon. Egypt, too, had her men learned in astronomy, who 
built splendid palaces and hundred-pillared Thebes the while 
they were worshipping Osiris. The dwellers before the 
Deluge had carried their civilization to a knowledge of arts 
now lost, while their wickedness and utter wanderings from 
God's worship caused the earth to cry out for a cleansing 
Flood. 

Whatever therefore may be true in the history of civiliza- 
tion — whether man was gifted, ab initio, with a large measure 
of useful knowledge which he had simply easily to put into 
practice ; or whether, as a savage, primitive man had slowly 
and painfully to find out under pressure the use of fire, 
clothing, weapons of defence and offence, tools, and other 
necessary articles and arts — is not important here to be dis- 
cussed. From whatever point of vantage, high or low, Adam's 
sons started, we know that they had at least tools for agri- 
culture 2 and for the building of houses ; 2 and that a few gen- 

1 Gen. iv. 2. 2 Gen. iv." 17. 



POLYTHEISM — IDOLATRY 43 

erations later, their knowledge of arts had grown from those 
which aided in the acquisition of the bare necessaries of life 
into the aesthetics of music and metallic ornamentation. 1 

But religion did not wait that length of time for its growth. 
To the original pair in Eden, Jehovah had given a knowledge 
of Himself. They felt His character, they were told His will ; 
and when they had disobeyed that will, they were given a 
promise of salvation, and were instructed in certain given rites 
of worship, e. g., offerings and sacrifice. They knew 2 the sig- 
nificance of atoning blood, and the difference between a simple 
thank-offering and a sin-offering. All this knowledge of re- 
ligion was not a possession which man had attained by slow 
degrees. He started with it in full possession, while yet he was 
clothed only in the skins of beasts, 3 and before he knew how to 
make musical instruments or to fashion brass and iron. His 
religion was in advance of his civilization. Subsequently his 
civilization pushed ahead. 

What were the gradual steps before the Deluge, in the di- 
vergence of man's worship of God, is not difficult to imagine 
if we look at the history of the Ohaldees, of the Hittites, and of 
the Jews themselves. Subsequent to the Deluge, from the 
grateful sacrifice of the seventh animal by Noah, to Abraham's 
typical offering of Isaac, it is not a very far cry to the butchery 
of Jephthah's daughter or the immolations to Moloch. A well- 
intended Ed 4 may readily become a schismatic Mecca. An 
altar of Dan is soon furnished with its golden calf. 

With this as a starting-point, viz., that the knowledge of 
himself was directly imparted to man by Jehovah, and that 
certain forms of worship were originally directed and sanc- 
tioned by Him, I wish in subsequent pages to follow that 
line of light through the labyrinths of man's wandering from 
monotheism into polytheism, idolatry, and even into crass 
fetichism. 

Abstract faith is difficult. It is so much easier to believe 
what we see, to have faith assisted by sight. Even such faith 
is not without its blessing, but " blessed are they that have 

1 Gen. iv. 21, 22. 2 Heb. xi. 4. 3 Gen. iii. 21. * Joshua xxii. 34. 



44 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

not seen, and yet have believed." 1 Memory is assisted by 
visible signs; whence the art of writing, — in its usefulness 
so far beyond the Indian's wampum belts. Merely oral law 
is apt to be forgotten, or its requisitions and prohibitions 
become hazy. 

As the years passed by, and nations, after the dispersion 
from the tower on the plain of Shinar, diverged more and 
more, not only in speech and writing but also in customs, 
their religious thought began to vary from the simple standard 
of Adam and Noah. Between those small beginnings of vari- 
ation and the gulf -like depth of the fetich, there are three 
successive steps. 

First, retaining the name of and belief in and worship of 
Jehovah, mankind added something else. They associated 
with Jehovah certain natural objects. This, it is readily con- 
ceivable, they could do without feeling that they were dis- 
honoring Him. They could not see Him ; in their expression 
of their wants in prayer they were speaking into vague space 
and heard no audible response. The strain on simple un- 
assisted faith was heavy. The senses asked for something on 
which they could lean. Very reasonable, therefore, it was for 
the pious thought, in speaking to the Great Invisible, to asso- 
ciate closely with His name the great natural objects in which 
His character was revealed or illustrated the, — sun, shining in 
strength and beneficently giving life to plants and the comfort 
of its warmth to all creation ; the moon, benefiting in a similar 
though less prominent way ; the sky, from which spake the 
thunder ; the mountain, towering in its solemn majesty ; the 
sea, spread out in its inscrutable immensity. All these illus- 
trating some of Jehovah's attributes, — His power, goodness, 
infinity, — without impropriety associated themselves in man's 
thought of God, were named along with His name, and were 
looked upon with some of the same reverence which was ac- 
corded to Him. In all this there was no conscious departure 
from the worship of the one living and true God. The posi- 
tion to which these great natural objects were gradually ele- 

1 John xx. 29. 



POLYTHEISM — IDOLATRY 45 

vated relatively to God, in the thought of the worshipper, was 
not as yet blasphemous, or in any intentional way derogatory 
to Him. But the evil in this elevation of nature into prom- 
inence with God was that there was no limit to the number 
of objects or the degree of their elevation. From the dignified 
use of sun, moon, sky, and sea, by unconscious degradations 
animals became the objects of worship — the bull, the ser- 
pent, and the cat (each illustrative of some attribute), 
and thence finally objects that were frivolous, ridiculous, or 
disgusting, which nevertheless were each the exponent of 
some principle. Even the indecencies of Phallic worship had 
found their dignified beginning in an attempt to honor the 
great principle of life in nature's procreative processes. 

But there came a time, in the multiplying of the objects 
illustrative of God's attributes, when they, by their very 
numbers, minimized divine dignity. Their constant, visible, 
tangible presence to the senses began not simply passively 
to represent God, but actively to personify Him, and Je- 
hovah was subdivided. He was still the great God ; but 
these others were given not only a name, but a personality 
which shadowed Him and dishonored Him, by admitting them 
to fellowship with Him, and regarding Him as no longer 
alone the great I Am. Though supreme, His supremacy was 
not exclusive ; it was comparative. He was over others, who 
also were gods, with whom He shared His power, and to 
whom was to be given somewhat of His worship. He was 
not indeed denied, but He was dishonored. He became only 
one of the many gods along with Baal and Ashtaroth. But 
the worship of Him was not abandoned. He was worshipped 
along with these others, as One among many. And finally 
polytheism had become the belief of the world, except of the 
many scattered small communities which, with their priests of 
the Most High God, like Melchisedek and Job, held the true 
light from extinction. " Jehovah " became a name for the Deity 
of a nation ; each nation, while reverencing its own god, not 
denying power to that of another nation. Man's little thought 
was trying to localize the Deity in its own small tribal limits. 



46 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Philistia worshipped its Dagon, but it feared and made tres- 
pass offerings to Jehovah of the Ark of Israel's Covenant. 1 

Nebuchadnezzar, startled by a vision of a Son of God in the 
flame of his fiery furnace, in an hour of repentance could 
decree that the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego 
should not be spoken against. 2 This was the second step in 
religion's retrograde movement. The personified natural 
objects were actually worshipped. No longer considered 
simply as representatives of God, they were actually given a 
part of God's place, and were worshipped as God. The 
prayer was not, "Jehovah, hear us, for the sake of Baal, 
through whom we plead ! " nor " O Baal, present our petition 
to Jehovah ! " but, flatly and directly, " O Baal, hear us ! " 

Having reached in their religious thought this position of 
a belief in many gods, it was a natural and logical result that 
worship was to be rendered to them all. The sacrifices that 
had been offered to Jehovah alone were divided for service 
to other gods. But it was the same religious sentiment, in 
both monotheist and polytheist, that prompted the rendering 
of prayer, sacrifice, and other service. The same sense of an 
" infinite dependence " that had led arms of weak faith to lay 
hold for help on that which was nearest and most obvious, 
operated with the heathen who had wandered from God, in 
his petition to his many gods, just as it had operated originally 
with the worshipper of the true God. The sentiment was 
right, the principle was good ; only, its application was wrong, 
— sometimes fearfully wrong. Man's religious nature is a 
force. There are other forces in nature that belong to other 
domains than religion. They are good forces if well applied ; 
they become engines of destruction if misapplied or applied in 
excess. 

In all history no misapplied force has wrought more fearful 
evil than the religious. It made holy even the atrocities of 
the Inquisition ; it ordained a Te Deum for the massacre of 
St. Bartholomew's Day. 

Similarly mankind found not only justification but propriety 

1 1 Sam. vi. 3. 2 Dan. iii. 29. 



POLYTHEISM — IDOLATRY 47 

in the human sacrifices to Moloch, and in the holocausts of 
the Aztec civilization. If in giving a gift of thanks, tribute, 
admiration, or fear to a human friend, ruler, or employer, we 
choose that which is good and best in our own eyes, so as to 
win the favor of the being to whom it is given, much more 
would we strive to please the god in whose power lies our life, 
health, and prosperity. It was a logical result, therefore, in 
choosing for sacrifice on great emergencies, to select the best- 
beloved child. Moloch would be pleased and propitiated by 
such a valuable gift. The more that the human love was 
renounced in the agony of the parents' view of their child's 
dying struggle, the more favorable would be the response to 
the worshipper. Under this misapplied religious force an 
Iphigenia is logical, and the Hindu infant cast to Gunga's 
wave a fitting offering in the agonized mother's eyes. But 
how fearfully mistaken! The religion that recognizes and 
directs such abuse is a " false religion," as compared with 
Christianity ; not in the sense that it has nothing good in it, 
but in the falsity of the objects of its worship and in the 
cruelty of the rites employed in that worship. In the genera 
of the sciences there is only one species of religion, but that 
one species has many varieties. In this sense Calvin is 
correct if, in speaking of the " immense welter of errors " in 
which the whole world outside of Christianity is immersed, 
"he regards his own religion as the true one and all the 
others were false." The function of a comparative study of 
religions is to point out the connecting line of truth running 
through the mass of error. Back of all the cruelty and error 
and falsity in polytheism lie the proper sense of need, the 
natural feeling of helplessness in the great emergencies of 
life, and the commendable desire to honor the Being known 
under different names as Jehovah, Moloch, Jupiter, Allah, 
Budh, Brahm, Odin, or Anyambe ; to which Being His chil- 
dren all over the world looked up as the All-Father. But 
the descensus Averni from the One living and true God 
soon multiplied gods, dividing among many the attributes 
that had been centred in the One, and finally carried man's 



48 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

religious thought so far from God that only His name was 
retained, while the trust which had belonged to Him alone 
was scattered over a multitude of objects that were not even 
dignified with the name "gods." Worship of ancestors was 
established. Great human benefactors, heroic human beings, 
were deified and canonized. The whole air of the world be- 
came peopled with spiritual influences ; literally " stocks and 
stones" became animated with demons of varying power and 
disposition ; and fetichism erected itself as a kind of religion. 

I see nothing to justify the theory of Menzies 2 that primi- 
tive man or the untutored African of to-day, in worshipping 
a tree, a snake, or an idol, originally worshipped those very 
objects themselves, and that the suggestion that they repre- 
sented, or were even the dwelling-place of, some spiritual 
Being is an after-thought up to which he has grown in 
the lapse of the ages. The rather I see every reason to 
believe that the thought of the Being or Beings as an object 
of worship has come down by tradition and from direct 
original revelation of Jehovah Himself. The assumption of 
a visible, tangible object to represent or personify that Being 
is the after-thought that human ingenuity has added. The 
civilized Romanist claims that he does not worship the actual 
sign of the cross, but the Christ who was crucified on it; 
similarly, the Dahomian, in his worship of a snake. 

Rev. J. L. Wilson, D.D., 2 says of the condition of Dahomy 
fifty years ago, that in Africa " there is no place where there 
is more intense heathenism; and to mention no other fea- 
ture in their superstitious practices, the worship of snakes 
at this place [Whydah] fully illustrates this remark. A 
house in the middle of the town is provided for the exclusive 
use of these reptiles, and they may be seen here at any time 
in very great numbers. They are fed, and more care is taken 
of them than of the human inhabitants of the place. If they 
are seen straying away, they must be brought back ; and at 
the sight of them the people prostrate themselves on the 

1 History of Religion, pp. 129 et seq. 

2 Western Africa, p. 207. 



POLYTHEISM — IDOLATRY 49 

ground and do them all possible reverence. To kill or injure 
one of them is to incur the penalty of death. On certain 
occasions they are taken out by the priests or doctors, and 
paraded about the streets, the bearers allowing them to coil 
themselves around their arms, necks, and bodies. They are 
also employed to detect persons who have been guilty of 
witchcraft. If, in the hands of the priest, they bite the sus- 
pected person, it is sure evidence of his guilt ; and no doubt 
the serpent is trained to do the will of his keeper in all such 
cases. Images, usually called ' gregrees,' of the most un- 
couth shape and form, may be seen in all parts of the town, 
and are worshipped by all classes of persons. Perhaps there 
is no place in Africa where idolatry is more openly practised, 
or where the people have sunk into deeper pagan darkness." 

Also, of the people on the southwest coast at Loango : 
" The people of Loango are more addicted to idol worship 
than any other people on the whole coast. They have 
a great many carved images which they set up in their fetich 
houses and in their private dwellings, and which they worship ; 
but whether these images represent their forefathers, as is 
the case among the Mpongwe (at Gabun), is not certainly 
known." 1 

Having thus followed the religious thought of mankind in 
its divagation from monotheistic worship of the true God, 
down through polytheism and idolatrous sacrifices, to the wor- 
ship of ancestors, we have reached a third stage, where the 
worship of God is not only divided between Him and other 
objects, but, a step beyond, God Himself is quietly disregarded, 
and the worship due Him is transferred to a multitude of 
spiritual agencies under His power, but uncontrolled by it. 

The details of this stage in the religious worship known as 
fetichism will be considered in the following chapters. 

1 Wilson. 



CHAPTER IV 

SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 

THE belief in spiritual beings opens an immense vista of 
the purely superstitious side of the theology of Bantu 
African religion. 

All the air and the future is peopled with a large and indefi- 
nite company of these beings. The attitude of the Creator 
(Anyambe) toward the human race and the lower animals being 
that of indifference or of positive severity in having allowed 
evils to exist, and His indifference making Him almost inex- 
orable, cause effort in the line of worship to be therefore 
directed only to those spirits who, though they are all prob- 
ably malevolent, may be influenced and made benevolent. 

I. Oeigin. 

The native thought in regard to the origin of spirits is 
vague ; necessarily so. An unwritten belief that is not based 
upon revelation from a superior source nor on an induction 
from actual experience and observation, but that is added to and 
varied by every individual's fancy, can be expressed in defi- 
nite words only after inquiry among many as to their ideas on 
the subject. These, I find, coincide on a few lines ; just as 
the consensus of opinion on any subject in any community will 
find itself running in certain channels, influenced by the ut- 
terances of the stronger or wiser leaders. 

1. It appears, therefore, that some of the spirits seem to 
have been conterminous with the life of Paia-Njambi in the 
eternities. An eternity past, impossible as it is for any one to 



SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 51 

comprehend, is yet a thing thinkable even with the Bantu 
African, for he has words to express it, — " peke-na-jome," 
ever-and-beyond, " tamba-na-ngama," unknown-and-secret. 

Away back in that unknown time existed Paia-Njambi. 
Whence or how, is not asked by the natives ; nor have I 
had any attempt even of a reply to my own inquiries. He 
simply existed. They are not sufficiently absurd to say that 
He created Himself. To do that He would need to antedate 
Himself. I have met none who thought sufficiently on the 
subject to worry their minds, as we in our civilization often 
do, in effort to go back and back to the unthinkable point in 
time past when God was not. Indeed so little is the native 
mind in the habit of any such research that I can readily per- 
ceive how their " We don't know " could easily be misunder- 
stood by a foreign traveller, scientist, or even missionary, as a 
confession that " they did not know God," — a statement 
which is true, but not the equivalent of, or synonymous 
with, that traveller's assertion that the native had no idea of a 
God. The native thought, wiser than ours, simply and un- 
reasoningly says, " He is, He was." Conterminous with 
Him in origin there may have been some other spirits. This 
has been said to me by a very few persons with some hesita- 
tion. But if those spirits were indeed equal in existence with 
Njambi, they were in no respect equal to Him in character 
or power, and had no hand in the creation of other beings. 
In the Mpongwe tribe at Gabun one writer, Rev. J. L. 
Wilson, D.D., fifty years ago, thought the belief existed 
that " next to God in the government of the world are two 
spirits, one of whom, Onyambe, is hateful and wicked. The 
people seldom speak of Onyambe, and always evince displeas- 
ure when the name is mentioned in their presence. His in- 
fluence over the affairs of men, in their estimation, does not 
amount to much; and the probability is that they have no 
very definite notions about the real character of this spirit." 
His character would be indicated by his name, O-nya-mbe (He- 
who-is-bad). This name has sometimes been used by mission- 
aries to translate our word u devil." Perhaps the idea of the 



52 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

word itself came from long-ago contact of this coast tribe 
with foreigners. 

2. A second and more recognized source of supply to the 
company of spirits is original creation by Njambi. While 
this origin is named by some, I have not found it believed 
in to any very great extent. Even those whom I did find 
believing it had very vague ideas as to the mode or object of 
their creation. Of the Creation of mankind, and even of the 
Fall, almost all of the tribes have legends, more or less dis- 
tinct, and with a modicum of truth, doubtless derived from 
traditions coinciding with the Mosaic history; but of a pre- 
vious creation of purely spiritual beings I have found no 
legend nor well-defined story. If such specially created 
spirits exist at all, their relation to Njambi is of a very 
shadowy kind ; they are, indeed, inferior to Him, and are in 
theory under His government in the same sense that human 
beings are. But Njambi, in His far-off indifference in actual 
practice, does not interfere with or control them or their ac- 
tions. They are part of the motley inhabitants of "Njambi's 
Town," the place of the Great Unknown, as also are all the 
other living beasts and beings of creation. They also have 
their separate habitat, and pursue their own devices, gener- 
ally malevolent, with the children of men. 

3. But the general consensus of opinion is that the world 
of spirits is peopled by the souls of dead human beings. This 
presupposes a belief in a future life, the existence of which 
in the native mind some travellers have doubted. I have 
never met that doubt from the native himself. While I do 
not impute to the travellers referred to any desire, in their 
efforts at describing the low grade of intelligence or religious 
belief of certain tribes, to misrepresent, I fully believe they 
were mistaken, their mistake arising from misunderstanding. 
It is not probable that they met, in the course of their few 
years, what I have not met with in a lifetime. It is probable 
that natives had expressed to them a doubt, or even igno- 
rance, of a general resurrection, and may have said to them, 
as a few have said to me, " No, we do not live again ; we are 



SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 53 

like goats and dogs and chickens, — ■ when we die that is the 
end of us." Such a statement is indeed a denial of the res- 
urrection of the body, but it is not a denial of a continued 
existence of the soul in another life. The very people who 
made the above declaration to me preserved their family 
fetich, made sacrifices to the spirits of their ancestors, and 
appealed to them for aid in their family undertakings. The 
few who have expressed a belief in transmigration did not 
consider that the residence of a human spirit in the body of 
a beast was a permanent state ; it was a temporary condition, 
assumed by the spirit voluntarily for its own pleasure or con- 
venience, and terminable at its own will, precisely as human 
spirits during their mortal life are, everywhere and by all, 
believed capable of temporarily deserting their own human 
body and controlling the actions of a beast. This belief in 
transmigration, though not general, has been found among 
individuals in almost all tribes. 

It being thus generally accepted that all departed human 
souls become spirits of that future that is all around us, there 
is still a difference in the testimony of intelligent witnesses 
as to who and what, or even how many, of these souls are in 
one human being. (1) Ordinarily, the native will say in 
effect, "I am one, and my soul is also myself. When I die, 
it goes out somewhere else." (2) Others will say, "I have 
two things, — one is the thing that becomes a spirit when I 
die, the other is the spirit of the body and dies with it." 
(This "other" may be only a personification of what we 
specify as the animal life.) But it has frequently occurred 
that even intelligent natives, standing by me at the side of 
a dying person, have said to me, "He is dead." The patient 
was indeed unconscious, lying stiff, not seeing, speaking, 
eating, or apparently feeling; yet there was a slight heart- 
beat. I would point out to the relatives these evidences of 
life. But they said : " No, he is dead. His spirit is gone, 
he does not see nor hear nor feel ; that slight movement is 
only the spirit of the body shaking itself. It is not a person, 
it is not our relative; he is dead." And they began to pre- 



54 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

pare the body for burial. A man actually came to me on 
Corisco Island, in 1863, asking me for medicine with which 
to kill or quiet the body-spirit of his mother, whose motions 
were troubling him by preventing the funeral arrangements. 
I was shocked at what I thought his attempt at matricide, 
but subsequently found that he really did believe that his 
mother was dead and her real soul gone. 

Such attempt to distinguish between soul-life and body- 
life has not infrequently led to premature burial. The sup- 
posed corpse has sometimes risen to consciousness on the way 
to the grave. A long-protracted sickness of some not very 
valuable member of the village has wearied the attendants ; 
they decide that the body, though mumbling inarticulate 
words and aimlessly fingering with its arms, is no longer 
occupied by its personal soul; that has emerged. "He is 
dead " ; and they proceed to bury him alive. Yet they deny 
that they have done so. They insist that he was not alive; 
only his body was "moving." Proof of premature burial has 
been found by discoveries made in the practice of a custom 
which is observed when a village has been afflicted with 
various troubles after the death of one of its members. The 
villagers, after ineffectual efforts to drive away the evil in- 
fluences that are supposed to cause these troubles, decide 
that the spirit of some dead relative is dissatisfied about 
something, and order the grave to be opened and the bones 
rearranged or even thrown into the river or sea. On open- 
ing the grave, corpses that had been buried in a recumbent 
position have been found in a sitting position. It is possible 
for one thus prematurely buried to change posture in a dying 
struggle; for, mostly, heathen graves are shallow, and are 
hastily and not always completely filled in. 

(3) Another set of witnesses will say that, besides the per- 
sonal soul and the soul of the body, there is a third entity in 
the human unit, namely, a dream-soul. That it is which 
leaves the body on occasions during sleep, and, wandering 
off, delights itself by visiting strange lands and strange 
scenes. On its return to the body its union with the mate- 



SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 55 

rial blunts its perceptions, and the person, in his efforts to 
remember or tell what he has seen, relates only the vagaries 
of a dream, — a psychological view which, under the manipu- 
lation of a ready pen, could give play to fantasies pretty, 
romantic, not unreasonable, and not impossible. 

Some who are only dualists, nevertheless, believe in the 
wanderings of this so-called dream-soul, but say that it is 
the personal soul itself that has gone out and has returned. 
Both dualists and trinitarians add that sometimes in its wan- 
derings this soul loses its way and cannot find its body, its 
material home; should it never return, the person will sicken 
and die. 

(4) A fourth entity is vaguely spoken of by some as a com- 
ponent part of the human personality, by others as separate 
but closely associated from birth to death, and called the life- 
spirit. Some speak of it as a civilized person speaks of a 
guardian angel. Regarded in that light, it should not be 
considered as one of the several hinds of souls, but as one of 
the various classes of spirits (which will be discussed in a 
subsequent chapter). To it worship is rendered by its pos- 
sessor as to other spirits, — a worship, however, different 
from that which is performed for what are known and used as 
"familiar spirits." Others speak of the vague life-spirit as 
the "heart." The organ of our anatomy which we designate 
by that name, they call by a word which variously means 
"heart" or "feelings," much like our old English "bowels," 
the same word being employed equally to designate a physi- 
cal organ and a mental state. Considering the organic heart 
as the seat (or a seat) of life, the natives believe that by 
witchcraft a person in health can be deprived of his life-soul, 
or "heart " ; that he will then sicken; that the wizard or witch 
feasts in his or her magic orgy on this "heart," and that the 
person will die if that heart is not returned to him. 

II. Number. 

But whatever this human soul may be, whether existing in 
unity, duality, trinity, or quadruplicity, all agree in belie v- 



56 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

ing that it adds itself, on the death of the body, as another 
to the multitudinous company of the spirit-world. That 
world is all around us, and does not differ much in its wants 
and characteristics from this earthly life, except that it is 
free from some of the limitations to which material bodies 
are subject. In that spirit-world they require the same food 
as when on earth, but consume only its essence ; the visible 
substance remains. They are possessed of all their human 
passions, both bad and good. Men expect to have their 
wives with them in that future, but I have never heard 
the idea even named, that there is procreation by spirits in 
that after-world. Not having believed during this life in a 
system of reward and punishment, they have no belief in 
heaven or hell. All the dead go to Njambi's Town, and live 
in that new life together, good and bad, as they lived to- 
gether on earth. The "hell" spoken of by some of my 
informants, I believe, is not a native thought; it was 
probably engrafted on the coast tribes by the Portuguese 
Roman Catholic missionaries of three hundred years ago. 

If therefore the spirits consist almost entirely of the souls 
of departed human beings, how immense their number! 
Equal in number with all the dead that have passed from 
this life in the ages gone by, excepting those who have gone 
permanently into the bodies of new human beings. That 
form of metempsychosis is believed in. Occasional instances 
of belief of transmigration into the body of a lower animal 
do not necessarily include the idea of a permanent residence 
there, or that the departed soul has lost its personality as a 
human being and has become the soul of a beast. 

But the idea of reappearance in the body of a newly born 
child was formerly believed in, especially in regard to white 
people. Thirty years ago I wrote: 1 "Down the swift cur- 
rent of the Benita, as of other rivers on the coast, are swept 
floating islands of interlaced rushes, tangled vines, and water- 
lilies that, clinging to some projecting log from the marshy 
bank, had gathered the sand and mud of successive freshets, 

1 Crowned in Palmland, p. 234. 



SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 57 

and gave a precarious footing for the pandanus, whose wiry 
roots bound all in one compact mass. Then some flood had 
torn that mass away, and the pandanus still waving its long, 
bayonet-like leaves, convolvuli still climbing and blooming, 
and birds still nesting trustfully, the floating island glided 
past native eyes down the stream, out over the bar, and on 
toward the horizon of broad ocean. What beyond ? Native 
superstition said that at the bottom of the ' great sea ' was 
' whiteman's land ' ; that thither some of their own departed 
friends found their happy future, exchanging a dusky skin 
for a white one; that there white man's magic skill at will 
created the beads, and cloth, and endless wealth that came 
from that unknown land in ships, in whose masts and rig- 
ging and sails were recognized the transformed trees and 
vines and leaves of those floating islands. When on the 
12th of July, 1866, a few with bated breath came to look on 
my little new-born Paull, the only white child most of the 
community had seen, and the first born in that Benita region, 
the old people said, 'Now our hopes are dead. Dying, 
we had hoped to become like you; but verily ye are born 
as we.' " 

Not long after I had arrived at Corisco Island in 1861 I 
observed among the many people who came to see the new 
missionary one man who quietly and unobtrusively but very 
steadily was gazing at me. After a while he mustered 
courage and addressed me : " Are you not my brother, — my 
brother who died at such a time, and went to White Man's 
Land?" I was at that time new to the superstitions of the 
country; his meaning had to be explained to me. His 
thought of relationship was not an impossible one, for many 
of the Bantu Negroes have somewhat Caucasian-like features. 
I have often seen men and women at the sight of whom I was 
surprised, and I would remark to a fellow-missionary : " How 
much this person reminds me of So-and-so in America ! " 
This recognition of resemblance of features to white persons 
living in America was the third step in my acquaintance 
with native faces. At first, all Negro faces looked alike. 



58 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Presently I learned differences ; and when I had reached the 
third step, I felt that my acquaintance with African features 
was complete. 

III. Locality. 

The locality of these spirits is not only vaguely in the sur- 
rounding air; they are also localized in prominent natural 
objects, — caves, enormous rocks, hollow trees, dark forests, 
— in this respect reminding one of classic fauns and dryads. 
While all have the ability to move from place to place, some 
especially belong to certain localities which are spoken of as 
having, as the case might be, "good" or "bad" spirits. It 
is possible for a human soul (as already mentioned in this 
chapter) to inhabit the body of a beast. A man whose plan- 
tation was being devastated near Benita by an elephant told 
me, in 1867, he did not dare to shoot it, because the spirit 
of his lately deceased father had passed into it. Also a com- 
mon objurgation of an obstreperous child or animal is, "O 
na nyemba! " (Thou hast a witch.) 

Their habitats may be either natural or acquired. Natural 
ones are, for the spirits of the dead, in a very special sense, 
the villages where they had dwelt during the lifetime of the 
body; but the presence of the spirits of the dead is not de- 
sired. It is one of the pitiable effects of African superstition 
that its subjects look with fear and dread on what the deni- 
zens of civilization look with love and tender regret. We in 
our Christian civilization cling to the lifeless forms of our dead ; 
and when necessity compels us to bury them from our sight, 
we bid memory call up every lineament of face and tone of 
voice, and are pleased to think that sometimes they are near 
us. But it is a frequent native practice that on the occasion 
of a death, even while a portion of the family are wailing 
and to all appearances passionately mourning the loss of their 
relative, others are firing guns, blowing trumpets, beating 
drums, shouting and yelling, in order to drive away from the 
village the recently disembodied spirit. On consideration, it 
can be seen that these two diverse demonstrations are sincere, 






SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 59 

consistent, and, to the natives, reasonable. With natural affec- 
tion they mourn the absence of a tangible person who, as a mem- 
ber of their family, was helpful and even kind ; while they fear 
the independent existence of the invisible thing, whose union 
with the physical body they fail to recognize as having been 
a factor in that helpfulness and kindness. This departed 
spirit, joining the company of other departed spirits, will 
indeed become an object of worship, — a worship of princi- 
pally a deprecatory nature; but its continued presence and 
immediate contact with its former routine are not desired. 
In Mashonaland the native fears death by accident or human 
enmity. " But a greater dread than this is of a visitation of 
evil by the spirit of a departed friend or relative whom he 
may have slighted while living." 

A village in Nazareth Bay, the embouchure of one of the 
mouths of the Ogowe River, is called " Abun-awiri " (" awiri," 
plural of "ombwiri," a certain class of spirits, and "abuna," 
abundance). 

Large, prominent trees are inhabited by spirits. Many 
trees in the equatorial West African forest throw out from 
their trunks, at from ten to sixteen feet from the ground, 
solid buttresses continuous with the body of the tree itself, 
only a few inches in thickness, but in width at the base of 
the tree from four to six feet. These buttresses are pro- 
jected toward several opposite points of the compass, as if 
to resist the force of sudden wind-storms. They are a notice- 
able forest feature and are commonly seen in the silk-cotton 
trees. The recesses between them are actually used as lairs 
by small wild animals. They are supposedly also a favorite 
home of the spirits. 

Caverns and large rocks have their special spirit inhabi- 
tants. At Gabun, and also on Corisco Island, geological 
breaks in the horizontal strata of rock were filled by narrow 
vertical strata of limestone, between which water action has 
worn away the softer rock, leaving the limestone walls iso- 
lated, with a narrow ravine between them. These ravines 
were formerly reverenced as the abodes of spirits. 



60 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

When I made a tour in 1882, surveying for a second 
Ogowe Station, I came some seventy miles up river from my 
well-established first station, Kangwe, at Lambarene, to an 
enormous rock, a granite boulder, lying in the bed of the 
river. The adjacent hillsides on either bank of the river 
were almost impassable, being covered with boulders of all 
sizes, and a heavy forest growing in among and even on 
them. This great rock had evidently in the long past be- 
come detached by torrential streams that scored the mountain- 
side in the heavy rainy season and had plunged to its present 
position. The swift river current swirled and dashed against 
the huge obstruction to navigation, making the ascent of the 
river at that point particularly difficult. Superstition sug- 
gested that the spirits of the rock did not wish boats or 
canoes to pass their abode. Nevertheless, necessities of trade 
compelled ; and crews in passing made an e jaculatory prayer, 
or doffed their head coverings, in respect, but with the fear 
that the " ascent " in that part of the journey might be for 
"woe," whence they called the rock " Itala-ja-maguga, " 
which, contracted to "Talaguga," I gave as a name to my 
new station, erected in 1882 in the vicinity of the rock. 
During my eight subsequent years at the station I did, in- 
deed, meet with some "woe," but also much weal. And the 
missionary work of Talaguga, carried on since 1892 by the 
hands of the Soci^te' Evangelique de Paris, has met with 
signal success. 

Capes, promontories, and other prominent points of land 
are favorite dwelling-places of the spirits. The Ogowe 
River, some one hundred and forty miles from its mouth, 
receives on its left bank a large affluent, the Ngunye, coming 
from the south. The low point of land at the junction of the 
two rivers was sacred. The riverine tribes themselves would 
pass it in canoes, respectfully removing their head coverings ; 
but passage was forbidden to coast tribes and other foreigners. 
Portuguese slave-traders might come to the point; but, stop- 
ping there, they could trade beyond only through the hands of 
the local tribe (evidently superstition had been invoked to 



SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 61 

protect a trade monopoly). A certain trader, Mr. R. B. N. 
Walker, agent for the English firm of Hatton & Cookson, 
headquarters at Libreville, Gabun, in extending his com- 
mercial interests some forty years ago, made an overland 
journey from the Gabun River, emerging on the Ogowe, 
on its right bank, above that sacred point. Ranoke, chief of 
the Inenga tribe, a few miles below, seized him, his porters, 
and his goods, and kept them prisoners for several months. 
Mr. Walker succeeded in bribing a native to carry a letter 
to the French Commandant at Libreville, who was pleased 
to send a gunboat to the rescue. Incidentally it furnished a 
good opportunity to demonstrate France's somewhat shadowy 
claim to the Ogowe. After the rescue a company from the 
gunboat proceeded to the Point and lunched there, thus 
effectually desecrating it. Mr. Walker made peace with his 
late captor, and established a trading-station at the Inenga 
village, Lambarene. For years afterward, natives still looked 
upon that Point with respect. My own crew in 1874 
sometimes doffed their hats; but before I left the Ogowe 
in 1891, a younger generation had grown up that was willing 
to camp and eat and sleep there with me, on my boat journeys. 
Graveyards, of course, are homes of spirits, and therefore 
are much dreaded. The tribes, especially of the interior, 
differ very much as to burial customs. Some bury only their 
chiefs and other prominent men, casting away corpses of 
slaves or of the poor into the rivers, or out on the open 
ground, perhaps covering them with a bundle of sticks; 
even when graves are dug they are shallow. Some tribes 
fearlessly bury their dead under the clay floors of their houses, 
or a few yards distant in the kitchen-garden generally ad- 
joining. But, by most tribes who do bury at all, there are 
chosen as cemeteries dark, tangled stretches of forest, along 
river banks on ground that is apt to be inundated or whose 
soil is not good for plantation purposes. I had often observed, 
in my earlier African years, such stretches of forest along 
the river, and wondered why the people did not use them for 
cultivation, being conveniently near to some village, while 



62 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

they would go a much longer distance to make their planta- 
tions. The explanation was that these were graveyards. 
Such stretches would extend sometimes for a mile or two. 
Often my hungry meal hour on a journey happened to coincide 
with our passing just such a piece of forest, and the crew 
would refuse to stop, keeping themselves and myself hungry 
till we could arrive at more open forest. 

In Eastern Africa it is believed that "the dead in their 
turn become spirits under the all-embracing name of Mu- 
simo. The Wanyamwezi hold their Musimo in great dread 
and veneration, as well as the house, hut, or place where their 
body has died." 1 

Beyond the regularly recognized habitats of the spirits that 
may be called " natural " to them, any other location may be 
acquired by them temporarily, for longer or shorter periods, 
under the power of the incantations of the native doctor 
(uganga). By his magic arts any spirit may be localized in 
any object whatever, however small or insignificant; and, 
while thus limited, is under the control of the doctor and 
subservient to the wishes of the possessor or wearer of the 
material object in which it is thus confined. This constitutes 
a "fetich," which will be more fully discussed in another 
chapter. 

IV. Characteristics. 

The characteristics of these spirits are much the same as 
those they possessed before they were disembodied. They 
have most of the evil human passions, e. g., anger and re- 
venge, and therefore may be malevolent. But they possess 
also the good feelings of generosity and gratitude ; they are 
therefore within reach of influence, and may be benevolent. 
Their possible malevolence is to be deprecated, their anger 
placated, their aid enlisted. 

Illustration of malevolence in their character has already 
been seen in the dread connected with deaths and funerals. 
The similar dread of graveyards in our civilized countries 

1 Decle. 



SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION 63 

may rest on the fear inspired by what is mysterious or by those 
who have passed to the unknown, simply because it and they 
are unknown. But, to superstitious Africa, that unknown is 
a certainty, in that it is a source of evil; the spirit of the 
departed has all the capacity for evil it possessed while 
embodied, with the additional capacity that its exemption 
from some of the limitations of time and space increases its 
facilities for action. Being unseen, it can act at immensely 
greater advantage for accomplishing a given purpose. Natives 
dying have gone into the other world retaining an acute 
memory of some wrong inflicted on them by fellow-villagers, 
and have openly said, " From that other world I will come 
back and avenge myself on you ! " 

In any contest of a human being against these spirits of 
evil he knows always that whatever influence he may obtain 
over them by the doctor's magic aid, or whatever limitations 
may thus be put on them, they can never, as in the case of a 
human enemy, be killed. The spirits can never die. 

Sometimes the word "dead " is used of a fetich amulet that 
has been inhabited by a spirit conjured into it by a native 
doctor. The phrase does not mean that its spirit is actually 
dead, but that it has fled from inside of the fetich, and still 
lives elsewhere. Then the native doctor, to explain to his 
patient or client the inefficacy of the charm, says that the 
cause of the spirit's escape and flight is that the wearer has 
failed to observe all the directions which had been given, and 
the spirit was displeased. The dead amulet is, neverthe- 
less, available for sale to the curio-hunting foreigner. 



CHAPTER V 

SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICA— THEIR CLASSES 
AND FUNCTIONS 

INEQUALITIES among the spirits themselves, though 
they are so great, indicate no more than simple differen- 
tiations of character or work. Yet so radical are these vari- 
eties, and so distinct the names applied to them, that I am 
compelled to recognize a division into classes. 

Classes and Functions. 

1. Inina, or Uina. A human embodied soul is spoken of 
and fully believed in by all the tribes. It is known in the 
Mpongwe tribes of the Gabun country as " inina " (plnral, 
"anina") ; in the adjacent Benga tribe, as "ilina" (plural, 
"nialina") ; in the great interior Fang tribes, as "nsisim." 

This animating soul, whether it be only one, or whether it 
appear in two, three, or even four forms, is practically the 
same, that talks, hears, and feels, that sometimes goes out 
of the body in a dream, and that exists as a spirit after the 
death of the body. That it has its own especial materiality 
seems to be indicated by the fact that in the Fang, Bakele, 
and other tribes the same word " nsisim " means not only soul 
but also shadow. The shadow of a tree or any other inani- 
mate object and of the human body as cast by the sun is 
" nsisim. " 

In my first explorations up the Ogowe River, in 1874, as in 
my village preaching I necessarily and constantly spoke of our 
soul, its sins, its capacity for suffering or happiness, and its 
relation to its divine Maker, I was often at a loss how to 



CLASSES AND FUNCTIONS OF SPIRITS 65 

make my thoughtless audience understand or appreciate that 
the nsisim of which I was speaking was not the nsisim 
cast by the sun as a darkish line on the ground near their 
bodies. Even to those who understood me, it was not an 
impossible thought that that dark narrow belt on the ground 
was in some way a part of, or a mode of manifestation of, that 
other thing, the nsisim, which they admitted was the source of 
the body's animation. So far defined was that thought with 
some of them that they said it was a possible thing for a 
human being to have his nsisim stolen or otherwise lost, and 
still exist in a diseased and dying state ; in which case his 
body would not cast a shadow. Yon Chamisso's story of 
Peter Schlemehl, " the man who lost his shadow," in actuality ! 

So few are the special activities by which to distinguish 
anina from other classes of spirits, that I might doubt whether 
they should properly be considered as distinct, were it not 
true that the anina are all of them embodied spirits ; none 
of them are of other origin. As disembodied spirits, retaining 
memory of their former human relationships, they have an 
interest in human affairs, and especially in the affairs of the 
family of which they were lately members. 

2. Ibambo (Mpongwe ; plural, "abambo"). There are 
vague beings, " abambo," which may well be described by our 
word " ghosts." Where they come from is not certainly 
known, or what locality they inhabit, except that they belong 
to the world of spirits. Why they become visible is also un- 
known. They are not called for, they are only occasionally 
worshipped ; their epiphany is dreaded, not reverenced. 

" The term 4 abambo ' is in the plural form, and may 
therefore be regarded as forming a class of spirits instead 
of a single individual. They are the spirits of dead men ; 
but whether they are positively good or positively evil, to 
be loved or to be hated, or to be courted or avoided, are 
points which no native of the country can answer satisfac- 
torily. Abambo are the spirits of the ancestors of the 
people of a tribe or race, as distinguished from the spirits 
of strangers. These are the spirits with which men are 

5 



66 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

possessed, and there is no end to the ceremonies used to 
deliver them from their power." 1 

The ibambo may appear anywhere and at any time and to 
anybody, but it has no message. It rarely speaks. Its 
most common effect on human lives is to frighten. It flits ; 
it does not remain in one spot, to speak or to be spoken to. 
Indistinctly seen, its appearances are reported as occurring 
mostly in dark places, in shadows, in twilight, and on dark 
nights. The most common apparitions are on lonely paths 
in the forest by night. 

To all intents and purposes these abambo are what super- 
stitious fears in our civilization call " ghosts." The timid 
dweller in civilization can no more tell us what that ghost is 
than can the ignorant African. It is as difficult in the one 
case as in the other to argue against the unreal and unknown. 
What the frightened eye or ear believes it saw or heard, it 
persists in believing against all proof. Nor will ridicule make 
the belief less strong. However, the intelligent child in civ- 
ilization, under the hand of a judicious parent or other friend, 
and relying on love as an expounder, can be led to understand 
by daylight, that the white bark of a tree trunk shimmering 
in uncertain moonlight, or a white garment flapping in the 
wind, or a white animal grazing in the meadow, was the ghost 
whose waving form had scared him the night before. His 
superstition is not so ingrained by daily exercise but that 
reason and love can divest him of it. But to the denizen of 
Fetich-land superstition is religion ; the night terror which 
he is sure he saw is too real a thing in his life to be identified 
by day as only a harmless white-barked tree or quartz rock. 

3. A third class of spirits is represented by the name 
Ombwiri. The " ombwiri " (Mpongwe ; plural, " awiri ") 
is certainly somewhat local, and in this respect might be re- 
garded as akin to the ancient fauns and dryads, with a sugges- 
tion of a likeness to the spirits resident in the dense oak groves 
and the massive stones of the Druid Circle. But the awiri 
are more than dryads. They are not confined to their local 

i J. L. Wilson. 



CLASSES AND FUNCTIONS OF SPIRITS 67 

rock, tree, bold promontory, or point of land, trespass on which 
b} r human beings they resent. The traveller must go by 
silently, or with some cabalistic invocation, with bowed or 
bared head, and with some offering, — anything, even a pebble. 
On the beach, as I bend to pass beneath an enormous tree 
fallen across the pathway, I observe the upper side of the log 
covered with votive offerings, — pebbles, shells, leaves, etc., — 
laid there by travellers as they stooped to pass under. Such 
votive collections may be seen on many spots along the forest 
paths, deposited there by the natives as an invocation of a 
blessing on their journey. 

" The derivation of the word ' Ombwiri ' is not known. As 
it is used in the plural as well as in the singular form, it no 
doubt represents a class or family of spirits. He is regarded 
as a tutelar or guardian spirit. Almost every man has his 
own ombwiri, for which he provides a small house near 
his own. All the harm that he has escaped in this world, 
and all the good secured, are ascribed to the kindly offices 
of this guardian spirit. Ombwiri is also regarded as the 
author of everything in the world which is marvellous or 
mysterious. Any remarkable feature in the physical aspect 
of the country, any notable phenomenon in the heavens, or 
extraordinary events in the affairs of men are ascribed to 
Ombwiri. His favorite places of abode are the summits of 
high mountains, deep caverns, large rocks, and the base of 
very large forest trees. And while the people attach no 
malignity to his character, they carefully guard against all 
unnecessary familiarity in their intercourse with him, and 
never pass a place where he is supposed to dwell except in 
silence. He is the only one of all the spirits recognized by 
the people that has no priesthood ; his intercourse with men 
being direct and immediate." 1 

These spirits are sometimes spoken of with the nkinda 
and olaga (Mpongwe ; plural, " ilaga "). They all come from 
the spirits of the dead. These several names indicate a dif- 
ference as to kind or class of spirit, and a difference in the 

i J. L. Wilson. 



68 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

work or functions they are called upon to exercise. The ilag& 
are spirits of strangers, and have come from a distance. 

While the ombwiri is indeed feared, it is with a respectful 
reverence, different from the dread of an ibambo. Ombwiri 
is fine and admirable in aspect, but is very rarely seen ; it is 
white, like a white person. Souls of distinguished chiefs 
and other great men turn to awiri. The fear with which the 
native regards massive rocks and large trees — the ombwiri 
homes — need not be felt by white people, who are them- 
selves considered awiri, without its being clearly understood 
whether their bodies are inhabited by the departed spirits of 
the Negro dead, or whether some came from other sources. 

The awiri are generally favorably disposed, especially to 
their former human relatives ; but it is necessary to gratify 
them with religious services constituting an ancestral wor- 
ship. While some of them reside in great rocks or trees, 
others dwell in rivers, lakes, and seas. 

Awiri, if they love a person and desire to favor him or 
her, have the special power to grant a gift desired by most 
Africans, viz., the birth of children. The awiri live mostly 
in the region of their own former human tribe. It is pos- 
sible, however, for them to go everywhere ; but they usually 
remain within their old tribal limits. If, however, a tribe 
should remove or become extinct, their awiri would still 
remain in that region, and would affiliate with the new people 
who might come to occupy the deserted village sites. 

Awiri have a period of inactivity, the cold dry season of 
four months (in western Equatorial Africa), May to Sep- 
tember. At that time they become very small, inactive, and 
almost lifeless (a condition of hibernation, somewhat like 
that of bears; or of inertia, as when a snake casts its skin?). 

4. There is another class of spirits called Sinhinda (sin- 
gular, "nkinda"), some of whom are the spirits of people 
who in the ordinary stations of life were " common," or not 
distinguished for greatness or goodness. Others of these sin- 
kinda are of uncertain origin, perhaps demons whom Njambi 
had created, but to whom He had never given bodily existence. 



CLASSES AND FUNCTIONS OF SPIRITS 69 

Almost all sinkinda are evilly disposed. They come to 
the villages on visits to warm themselves by the kitchen fires 
or out of curiosity to see what is going on, and sometimes, 
temporarily, to enter into the bodies of the living, especially 
of their own family. The entrance of a nkinda into a 
human body always sickens the person. It may enter any 
one, even a child. If many of them enter a man's body, he 
becomes crazy. 

Sometimes the nkinda, when asked who he is, says : " I am 
a spirit of a member of your own family, and I have come to 
live with you. I am tired of living in the forest with cold 
and hunger. I wish to stay with you." 

Often when people are sick with fever or cold, the diagnosis 
is made that some nkinda has come on a visit. If it is of the 
same family as those whom it is visiting, it comes and goes 
from time to time, to please itself ; but it is never, like an 
uvengwa, visible. 

Sometimes these sinkinda are called " ivavi " (sing. " ovavi," 
messenger). They come from far and bring news, e. g. y "An 
epidemic of disease is coming," or " A ship is coming with 
wealth." Sometimes the news thus brought proves true. 
(Is this our modern spiritualism ? ) In such cases the coming 
of the nkinda is regarded as a blessing, in that it warns the 
living of evil or brings them wealth. The information is al- 
ways carried by the mouth of some living member of the family. 
If these sinkinda are asked by a non-possessed member of the 
family, " Where do you live ? " the reply is, " Nowhere in 
particular. But at evenings we gather about your town, to 
see you and join in your dances and songs. We see you, 
though you do not see us." 

5. Mondi. There are beings, " myondi " (Benga ; singular, 
u mondi "), who are agents in causing sickness or in either 
aiding or hindering human plans. These spirits are much the 
same as those of the fourth class, except that in power they 
seem to be more independent than other spirits. But they 
are ^not always simply passive in the hands of the doctor ; 
they are often active on their own account, or at their own 



TO FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

pleasure, generally to injure. They are worshipped almost 
always in a deprecatory way. They often take violent pos- 
session of human bodies ; and for their expulsion it is that ilaga, 
sinkinda, and awiri are invoked. They are invoked especially 
at the new moons, but also at other times, particularly in 
sickness. The native oganga decides whether or no they be 
myondi that are afflicting the patient. When the diagnosis 
has been made, and myondi declared to be present in the pa- 
tient's body, the indication is that they are to be exorcised. 

A slight doubt must be admitted in regard to these myondi, 
whether they really do constitute a distinct class, or whether 
any spirit of any class may not become a myondi. The name 
in that case would be given them, not as a class, but as pro- 
ducers of certain effects, at certain times and under certain 
circumstances. 

The powers and functions of the several classes of spirits 
do not seem to be distinctly denned. Certainly they do not 
confine themselves either to their recognized locality or to 
the usually understood function pertaining to their class. 
These powers and functions shade into each other, or may be 
assumed by members of almost any class. But it is clearly 
believed that spirits, even of the same class, differ in power. 
Some are strong, others are weak. They are limited as to the 
nature of their powers ; no spirit can do all things. A spirit's 
efficiency runs only on a certain line or lines. All of them 
can be influenced and made subservient to human wishes 
by a variety of incantations. 

There are other names which, while they belong to spirits, 
apparently indicate only peculiarities in spiritual manifesta- 
tions, and not representatives of a class. 

1. There may enter into any animal's body (generally a 
leopard's) some spirit, or, temporarily, even the soul of a 
living human being. The animal then, guided by human 
intelligence and will, exercises its strength for the purposes 
of the temporary human possessor. Many murders are said 
to be committed in this Avay, after the manner of the mythical 
German wehr-wolf or the French loup-garou. 



CLASSES AND FUNCTIONS OF SPIRITS 71 

This belief in demoniacal possession of a lower animal 
must not be confounded with the equally believed transmigra- 
tion of souls. The former is widespread over at least a third 
of the African continent. In Mashona-land " they believe 
that at times both living and dead persons can change them- 
selves into animals, either to execute some vengeance, or to 
procure something they wish for; thus, a man will change 
himself into a hyena or a lion to steal a sheep and make a 
good meal off it ; into a serpent to avenge himself on some 
enemy. At other times, if they see a serpent, it is one of the 
Matotela tribe or slave tribe, which has thus transformed 
himself to take some vengeance on the Barotse." 1 

2. Another manifestation is that of the uvengwa. It is 
claimed to be not simply spiritual, but tangible. It is the 
self-resurrected spirit and body of a dead human being. 
It is an object of dread, and is never worshipped in any 
manner whatever. Why it appears is not known. Perhaps 
it shows itself only in a restless, unquiet, or dissatisfied feeling. 
It is white in color, but the body is variously changed from 
the likeness of the original human body. Some say that it 
has only one eye, placed in the centre of the forehead. Some 
say that its feet are webbed like an aquatic bird. It does 
not speak ; it only wanders, looking as if with curiosity. 

My little cottage at Batanga is a mile and a half from the 
three chief dwellings of the station. One afternoon in 1902 
I went to the station, leaving my cook and his wife in charge 
of the cottage. When I returned late at night, he asserted 
that an uvengwa had come there. A few yards in front of 
the door of the house is a mango tree with its very dense 
dark foliage. The trunk is divided a few feet from the 
ground. The light from the open door streamed into a part 
of the front yard, leaving the tree trunk in dark shadow. 
The woman going out of the door had started back, scream- 
ing to her husband that she saw an uvengwa standing in the 
crotch of the tree and peering around one of the branches. 
The husband went to the door. He asserted to me that he 

i Decle. 



72 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

also had seen the form. In their terror, neither of them made 
any investigation. Possibly a chalk-whitened thief had taken 
advantage of my absence to prowl about. But the two wit- 
nesses rejected such a suggestion ; they were sure it was a 
visitor from some grave. 

3. Other spiritual manifestations are spoken of as the per- 
sonal guardian-spirit and the family guardian-spirit. These 
do not constitute a separate class, but are the special modes of 
operation adopted by the ancestral spirit or spirits in the pro- 
tection of their family. Its description belongs properly to a 
later chapter under the name of the Family Yaka fetich. 

The manner of invocation of all these five classes of spirits, 
in the case of obscure diseases, is very much the same now as 
what Dr. Wilson described fifty years ago. What he saw on 
the Gabun River tallies with what I also saw thirty years ago 
at Benita, and subsequently in the Ogowe. Even at Gabun, 
in the present day, though the Mpongwe have been en- 
lightened, the same ceremonies are kept up by other tribes, 
the Shekani and Fang, who have emerged on the coast at 
Libreville. 

" Sick persons, and especially those that are afflicted with 
nervous disorders, are supposed to be possessed by one or the 
other of these spirits. If the disease assumes a serious form, 
the patient is taken to a priest or a priestess, of either of these 
classes of spirits. Certain tests are applied, and it is soon 
ascertained to which class the disease belongs, and the patient 
is accordingly turned over to the proper priest. The cere- 
monies in the different cases are not materially different ; they 
are alike, at least, in the employment of an almost endless round 
of absurd, unmeaning, and disgusting ceremonies which none 
but a heathenish and ignorant priesthood could invent, and 
none but a poor, ignorant, and superstitious people could 
ever tolerate. 

" In either case a temporary shanty is erected in the middle 
of the street for the occupancy of the patient, the priest, and 
such persons as are to take part in the ceremony of exorcism. 
The time employed in performing the ceremonies is seldom 



CLASSES AND FUNCTIONS OF SPIRITS 73 

less than ten or fifteen days. During this period dancing, 
drumming, feasting, and drinking are kept up without inter- 
mission day and night, and all at the expense of the nearest 
relative of the invalid. The patient, if a female, is decked out 
in the most fantastic costume ; her face, bosom, arms, and legs 
are streaked with red and white chalk, her head adorned with 
red feathers, and much of the time she promenades the open 
space in front of the shanty with a sword in her hand, which 
she brandishes in a very menacing way against the bystanders. 
At the same time she assumes as much of the maniac in her 
looks, actions, gestures, and walk as possible. In many cases 
this is all mere affectation, and no one is deceived by it. But 
there are other cases where motions seem involuntary and 
entirely beyond the control of the person; and when you 
watch the wild and unnatural stare, the convulsive move- 
ments of the limbs and body, the unnatural posture into 
which the whole frame is occasionally thrown, the gnashing 
of the teeth, and foaming at the mouth, and supernatural 
strength that is put forth when any attempt is made at con- 
straint, you are strongly reminded of cases of real possession 
recorded in the New Testament. 

" There is no reason to suppose that any real cures are ef- 
fected by these prolonged ceremonies. In certain nervous 
affections the excitement is kept up until utter exhaustion 
takes place; and if the patient is kept quiet afterwards 
(which is generally the case),. she may be restored to better 
health after a while; and, no matter how long it may be 
before she recovers from this severe tax upon her nerves, the 
priest claims the credit of it. In other cases the patient may 
not have been diseased at all, and, of course, there was nothing 
to be recovered from. 

" If it should be a case of undissembled sickness, and the 
patient become worse by this unnatural treatment, she is re- 
moved, and the ceremonies are suspended, and it is concluded 
that it was not a real possession, but something else. The 
priests have certain tests by which it is known when the 
patient is healed, and the whole transaction is wound up 



74 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

when the fees are paid. In all cases of this kind it is im- 
possible to say whether the devil has really been cast out or 
merely a better understanding arrived at between him and the 
person he has been tormenting. The individual is required to 
build a little house or temple for the spirit near his own, to 
take occasional offerings to him, and pay all due respect to his 
character, or to be subject to renewed assaults at any time. 
Certain restrictions are imposed upon the person who has 
recovered from these satanic influences. He must refrain 
from certain kinds of food, avoid certain places of common 
resort, and perform certain duties; and, for the neglect of 
any of these, is sure to be severely scourged by a return 
of his malady. Like the Jews, in speaking of the actions of 
these demoniacs, they are said to be done by the spirit, and 
not by the person who is possessed. If the person performs 
any unnatural or revolting act, — as the biting off of the head 
of a live chicken and sucking its blood, — it is said that the 
spirit, not the man, has done it. 

" But the views of the great mass of the people on these 
subjects are exceedingly vague and indefinite. They attend 
these ceremonies on account of the parade and excitement 
that usually accompany them, but they have no knowledge 
of their origin, their true nature, or of their results. Many 
submit to the ceremonies because they are persuaded to do so 
by their friends, and, no doubt, in many cases in the hope of 
being freed from some troublesome malady. But as to the 
meaning of the ceremonies themselves, or the real influence 
which they exert upon their bodily diseases, they probably 
have many doubts, and when called upon to give explanation 
of the process which they have passed through, they show 
that they have none but the most confused ideas." 1 

1 Wilson, Western Africa. 



CHAPTER VI 

FETICHISM — ITS PHILOSOPHY — A PHYSICAL 
SALVATION — CHARMS AND AMULETS 

EVEN during the while that man was still a monotheist, 
as seen in a previous chapter, he had eventually come 
to the use of idols which he did not actually worship, by the 
making of images simply to represent God ; he had not yet 
become an idolater. 

Subsequently, in his farther lapse away from God, when he 
began to render worship to beings other than God, fashioned 
images to represent them also, and actually worshipped them, 
he became a polytheist and an idolater. 

When he had wandered still farther, and God was no 
longer worshipped, the knowledge of Him being reduced to 
a name, a multitude of spiritual beings were substituted in 
place of God, and religion was only animism. 

Farther on, when it seemed desirable to provide local 
residence for these spirits, as had been done for God Himself 
in temples and costly images, the material objects used for 
that residence were no longer matter of value and choice ; 
anything and any place was sufficient for a spirit's habitat. 
Neither dignity, beauty, nor strength was any longer a factor 
in the selection. For these objects did not represent the 
deities in any way whatever. They were simply local resi- 
dences. As such, a spirit could live anywhere and in 
anything. This is bald fetichism. The thing itself, the 
material itself, is not worshipped. The fetich worshipper 
makes a clear distinction between the reverence with which 
he regards a certain material object and the worship he ren- 
ders to the spirit for the time being inhabiting it. For this 



76 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

reason nothing is too mean or too small or too ridiculous to 
be considered fit for a spirit's locum tenens ; for when for 
any reason the spirit is supposed to have gone out of that 
thing and definitely abandoned it, the thing itself is no longer 
reverenced, and is thrown away as useless. 

The selection of the article in which the spirit is to reside 
is made by the native " uganga " (doctor), who to the Negro 
stands in the office of a priest. The ground of selection is 
generally that of mere convenience. The ability to conjure 
a free wandering spirit into the narrow limits of a small ma- 
terial object, and to compel and subordinate its power to the 
aid of some designated person or persons and for a specific 
purpose, rests with that uganga. 

Over the wide range of many articles used in which to 
confine spirits, common and favorite things are the skins and 
especially the tails of bush-cats, horns of antelopes, nut-shells, 
snail-shells, bones of any animal, but especially human bones ; 
and among the bones are specially regarded portions of skulls 
of human beings and teeth and claws of leopards. But, lit- 
erally, anything may be chosen, — any stick, any stone, any 
rag of cloth. Apparently, there being no limit to the num- 
ber of spirits, there is literally no limit to the number and 
character of the articles in which they may be localized. 

It is not true, as is asserted by some in regard to these 
African tribes and their degraded form of religion, that they 
worship the actual material objects in which the spirits are 
supposed to be confined. Low as is fetichism, it nevertheless 
has its philosophy, a philosophy that is the same in kind as 
that of the higher forms of religion. A similar sense of need 
that sends the Christian to his knees before God to ask aid in 
time of trouble, and salvation temporal and spiritual, sends 
the fetich worshipper to offer his sacrifice and to ejaculate 
his prayer for help as he lays hold of his consecrated antelope 
horn, or as he looks on it with abiding trust while it is safely 
tied to his body. His human necessity drives him to seek 
assistance. 

The difference between his act and the act of the Christian 



PHILOSOPHY — CHARMS AND AMULETS 77 

lies in the kind of salvation he seeks, the being to whom he 
appeals, and the reason for his appealing. The reason for his 
appeal is simply fear ; there is no confession, no love, rarely 
thanksgiving. 

The being to whom he appeals is not God. True, he does 
not deny that He is ; if asked, he will acknowledge His exist- 
ence. But that is all. Very rarely and only in extreme 
emergencies, does he make an appeal to Him ; for he thinks 
God so far off, so inaccessible, so indifferent to human woes 
and wants, that a petition to Him would be almost in vain. 
He therefore turns to some one of the mass of spirits which 
he believes to be ever near and observant of human affairs, 
in which, as former human beings, some of them once had 
part. 

As to the character of the salvation sought, it is not spir- 
itual ; it is a purely physical salvation. A sense of moral and 
spiritual need is lost sight of, although not eliminated. This 
is an index of the distance the Negro has travelled away from 
Jehovah before he finally reached the position of placing his 
trust in a fetich. By just so much as he seems to himself living 
in a world crowded with unseen but powerful spiritual beings 
(with whom what a Christian calls " sin " has no reprehensible 
moral quality), by just so much he seems to have lost sight of 
his own soul and its moral necessities. 

The future is so vague that in the thought of most tribes 
it contains neither heaven nor hell ; there is no certain reward 
or rest for goodness, nor positive punishment for badness. 
The future life is to each native largely a reproduction, on 
shadowy and intangible lines, of the works and interests and 
passions of this earthly life. In his present life, with its sav- 
agery and oppression and dominance of selfish greed and right 
of might, goodness has no reward. It is badness which in his 
personal experience makes the largest gains. From this point 
of view, while some acts are indeed called " good " and some 
" bad " (conscience proving its simple existence by the use of 
these words in the record of language), yet conscience is not 
much troubled by its possessor's badness. There is little 



78 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

sense of the sinfulness of sin. There is only fear of possible 
human injury by human or subsidized spiritual enemies. This 
is all the salvation that is sought. 

It is sought by prayer ; by sacrifice, and by certain other 
ceremonies rendered to the spirit of the fetich or to other 
non-localized spirits ; and by the use of charms or amulets. 

These charms may be vocal, ritual, or material. 

(1) The vocal are the utterance of cabalistic words depre- 
catory of evil or supplicatory of favor, which are supposed in 
a vague way to have power over the local spirits. These 
words or phrases, though sometimes coined by a person for 
himself or herself (and therefore like our slang having a 
known meaning), are often archaisms, handed down from 
ancestors and believed to possess efficiency, but whose mean- 
ing is forgotten. In this list would be included long incanta- 
tions by the magic doctors and the Ibata-blown blessing. 

(2) Certain rites or ceremonies are performed for almost 
every child at some time during his or her infancy or youth, 
or subsequently as occasion may demand, in which a prohibi- 
tion is laid upon the child in regard to the eating of some 
particular article of food or the doing of some special act. It 
is difficult to get at the exact object for this " orunda." Cer- 
tainly the prohibited food or act is not in itself evil ; for all 
but the inhibited individual may eat of the food or commit the 
act as they please. Most natives blindly follow the " custom " 
of their ancestors, and are unable to give me the raison d'etre 
of the rite itself. But I gather from the testimony of those best 
able to give a reason that the prohibited article or act is liter- 
ally a sacrifice, ordained for the child by its parents and the 
magic doctor, as a gift to the governing spirit of its life. The 
thing prohibited thus becomes removed from the child's com- 
mon use and is made sacred to the spirit. It is therefore a 
sacrament. Any use of it by the child will thenceforth be a 
sacrilege which would draw down the spirit's wrath in the 
form of sickness or other evil, and which can be atoned for 
only through expensive ceremonies and by gifts to the magi- 
cian interceding for the offender. 



PHILOSOPHY — CHARMS AND AMULETS 79 

Anything may be selected for an orunda. I do not know 
the ground for a selection. Why one child, perhaps a babe 
too young to have eaten of the to-be-prohibited thing, should 
be debarred forever from eating a chicken, or the liver or 
any other particular part, or any portion at all, of a goat or an 
ox or any other animal, I do not know. But that orunda 
is thenceforth faithfully complied with, even under pangs 
of hunger. It is like a Nazarite's vow. 

I have a strong suspicion that where the orunda laid on a 
woman is a matter of meat, superstition has played into the 
hands of masculine selfishness, and denies to women the choice 
meat in order that men may have the greater share. My 
suspicion rests on almost positive evidence in the case of 
some prohibitions to the women of the Bulu and other Fang 
tribes of the interior. 

On a boat journey in the Ogowe River, about 1878, I 
camped on the edge of a forest for the noon meal. My crew 
of four, members of the Galwa and Nkami tribes, had no 
meat. They needed it, for they had rowed hard and well. 
For myself, I had only a small chicken. I was satisfied with 
a portion of it, and gave the rest to the crew. It would 
make at least a tasty morsel for each, with their manioc 
bread. Three of them thanked me ; the fourth did not touch 
his share. I felt slightly vexed, thinking my favor was not 
appreciated, and I asked the cause of his apparent sullenness. 
He said he did not dare to eat of the fowl, as it was orunda 
to him. 

On another journey, in 1876, a young man whom I had 
picked up as extra hand in my boat's crew, when at the noon 
mealtime we stopped under the shade of a spreading tree 
by the river's bank, instead of respectfully leaving me alone 
with my lunch in the boat, and going ashore where the others 
were eating, wanted to remain in the boat, his orunda being 
that when on a journey by water his food should be eaten 
only over water. 

Two Ogowe chiefs, near whose villages was anchored the 
small river steamer "Pioneer," on which I was passenger, 



80 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

in 1875, came aboard, and in drinking a glass of liquor 
with the captain, one of them held up a piece of white 
cloth before his mouth, in order that strangers' eyes might 
not see him swallow. That was his orunda, probably. 
Perhaps also the hiding of his drinking may have had refer- 
ence to the common fear of another's "evil eye." 

The other, having taken a mouthful, wet his finger in his 
mouth, drew the wet finger across his throat, and then blew 
on a fetich which he wore as a ring on a finger of the other 
hand. I do not know the significance of his motion across 
his throat. The blowing was the Ibata-blessing, — an ejacu- 
latory prayer for a blessing on his plans, probably of trade. 

This word "orunda," meaning thus originally prohibited 
from human use (like the South Sea "taboo"), grew, under 
missionary hands, into its related meaning of sacred to spirit- 
ual use. It is the word by which the Mpongwe Scriptures 
translate our word "holy." I think it an unfortunate choice; 
for the missionary has to stop and explain that orunda, as 
used for God, does not mean the orunda used by mankind. 
In the translation of the Benga Scriptures the word "holy" 
was transferred bodily, and we explain that it means some- 
thing better than good. To such straits are translators some- 
times reduced in the use of heathen languages ! 

(3) The charms that are most common are material, the 
fetich, — so common, indeed, that by the universality of 
their-use, and the prominence given to them everywhere, in 
houses and on the person, they almost monopolize the religious 
thought of the Bantu Negro, subordinating other acknowl- 
edged points of his theology, dominating his almost entire 
religious interest, and giving the departmental word " fetich " 
such overwhelming regard that it has furnished the name 
distinctive of the native African religious system, viz., fetich- 
ism. " Fetich " is an English word of Portuguese origin. 
"It is derived from feitico, 'made,' 'artificial ' (compare the 
old English fetys, used by Chaucer); and this term, used of 
the charms and amulets worn in the Roman Catholic religion 
of the period, was applied, by the Portuguese sailors of the 



PHILOSOPHY — CHARMS AND AMULETS 81 

eighteenth century, to the deities they saw worshipped by 
the Negroes of the West Coast of Africa. 

" De Brosses, a French savant of the last century, brought 
the word 'fetichism ' into use as a term for the type of re- 
ligion of the lowest races. The word has given rise to 
some confusion, having been applied, by Comte and other 
writers, to the worship of the heavenly bodies and of the great 
features of Nature. It is best to limit it to the worship of 
such natural objects as are reverenced, not for their own 
power or excellence, but because they are supposed to be oc- 
cupied each by a spirit." l 

The native word on the Liberian coast is "gree-gree " ; in 
the Niger Delta, "ju-ju"; in the Gabun country, "monda"; 
among the cannibal Fang, "bian"; and in other tribes the 
same respective dialectic by which we translate "medicine." 
To a sick native's thought the adjuvant medicinal herb used 
by the doctor, and its associated efficiency-giving spirit in- 
voked by that same doctor, are inseparable. In the heathen 
Negro's soul the fetich takes the place, and has the regard, 
which an idol has with the Hindu and the Chinese. 

" A fetich, strictly speaking, is little else than a charm or 
amulet, worn about the person, and set up at some conven- 
ient place, for the purpose of guarding against some ap- 
prehended evil or securing some coveted good." In the 
Anglo-African parlance of the Coast fetiches are called by 
various names, but all signify the same thing. Fetiches may 
be made of anything of vegetable, animal, or metallic nature, 
" and need only to pass through the consecrating hands of a 
native priest to receive all the supernatural powers which 
they are supposed to possess. It is not always certain that 
they possess extraordinary powers. They must be tried and 
give proof of their efficiency before they can be implicitly 
trusted." 2 

A fetich, then, is any material object consecrated by the 
"oganga," or magic doctor, with a variety of ceremonies and 

1 Menzies, History of Religion, p. 33. 

2 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 212. 



82 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

processes, by virtue of which some spirit becomes localized in 
that object, and subject to the will of the possessor. 

Anything that can be conveniently carried on the person 
may thus be consecrated, — a stone, chip, rag, string, or bead. 
Articles most frequently used are snail-shells, nut-shells, and 
small horns of gazelles or goats. These are used probably 
because of their convenient cavities ; for they are 4;o be filled 
by the oganga with a variety of substances depending, in 
their selection, on the special work to be accomplished by 
the fetich. Its value, however, depends not on itself, nor 
solely on the character of these substances, but on the skill of 
the oganga in dealing with spirits. 

There is a relation between these selected substances and 
the object to be obtained by the fetich which is to be pre- 
pared of them, — for example, to give the possessor bravery 
or strength, some part of a leopard or an elephant; to give 
cunning, some part of a gazelle ; to give wisdom^ some part 
of a human brain; to give courage, some part of a heart; 
to give influence, some part of an eye; and so on for a 
multitude of qualities. These substances are supposed to 
lure some spirit (being in some way pleasing to it), which 
thenceforward is satisfied to reside in them and to aid 
the possessor in the accomplishment of some one specific 
wish. 

In preparing a fetich the oganga selects substances such 
as he deems appropriate to the end in view, — the ashes of cer- 
tain medicinal plants, pieces of calcined bones, gums, spices, 
resins, and even filth, portions of organs of the bodies of 
animals, and especially of human beings (preferably eyes, 
brain, heart, and gall-bladder), particularly of ancestors, or 
men strong or renowned in any way, and very especially of 
enemies and of white men. Human eyeballs (particularly of 
a white person) are a great prize. New-made graves have 
been rifled for them. 

These are compounded in secret, with the accompaniment 
of drums, dancing, invocations, looking into mirrors or limpid 
water to see faces (human or spiritual, as may be desired), and 



PHILOSOPHY — CHARMS AND AMULETS 83 

are stuffed into the hollow of the shell or bone, or smeared 
over the stick or stone. 

If it be desired to obtain power over some one else, the 
oganga must be given by the applicant, to be mixed in the 
sacred compound, either crumbs from the food, or clippings 
of finger nails or hair, or (most powerful !) even a drop of 
blood of the person over whom influence is sought. These 
represent the life or body of that person. So fearful are 
natives of power being thus obtained over them, that they 
have their hair cut only by a friend; and even then they 
carefully burn it or cast it into a river. If one acciden- 
tally cuts himself, he stamps out what blood has dropped on 
the ground, or cuts out from wood the part saturated with 
blood. 

Sitting one day by a village boat-landing in the Benita 
region, about 1866, while my crew prepared for our journey, 
I was idly plucking at my beard, and carelessly flung away 
a few hairs. Presently I observed that some children gath- 
ered them up. Asking my Christian assistant what that 
meant, he told me: "They will have a fetich made with 
those hairs ; when next you visit this village, they will ask 
you for some favor, and you will grant it, by the power they 
will thus have obtained over you. " 

The water with which a lover's body (male or female) is 
washed, is used in making a philter to be mingled secretly 
in the drink of the loved one. 

While, as I have already stated, it is true that anything 
portable may be used either as the receptacle in which the 
spirit is to be located or as the substance or " medicine " to be 
inserted in it, I wish to insist that in the philosophy of fetich 
there is always a reason in the selection of all these articles, — 
a reason which it is often difficult for a foreigner to discover, 
— an apparent fitness for the end in view. 

Arnot J refers to this : " Africans believe largely in preven- 
tive measures, and their fetich charms are chiefly of that order. 
In passing through a country where leopards and lions abound, 

1 GareDganze, p. 237. 



84 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

they carefully provide themselves with the claws, teeth, lips, 
and whiskers of those animals, and hang them around their 
necks, to secure themselves against being attacked. For the 
same purpose the point of an elephant trunk is generally 
worn by elephant hunters. The bones from the legs of tor- 
toises are much valued as anklets, in order to give the wearers 
endurance, reminding one of the fable of the tortoise. The 
lower jaw-bone of the tortoise is worn by certain tribes as a 
preventive against toothache. The spine bones of serpents 
are strung together with a girdle as a cure for back-ache.". 

A recent visitor to the Gabun country, in the " Journal of 
the African Society," makes this criticism: "When a white 
man or woman wears some trinket strung about them, they 
call it an amulet or charm. They ascribe to it some virtue, 
and regard it as a sacred (?) thing; but when an African 
native wears one, white men call it 4 fetich, ' and the wearer 
a savage or heathen." This defence of the Negro is gratify- 
ing, but the criticism of the white man is not quite just. 
There is this radical difference: to the African the "fetich" 
is his all, his entire hope for his physical salvation ; he does 
not reckon on God at all. The civilized man or woman with 
a "mascot" is very foolish in his or her belief in luck, but 
their mascots never entirely take God's place. 

I met at Gabun about 1895 the same criticism from the 
mouth of a partly educated Sierra Leone Negro, who, though 
a professing Christian, evidently was wearing Christianity 
hypocritically. His well-educated Mpongwe wife was a 
member of my church. It was discovered that she had a 
certain fetich suspended in her bedroom. It was necessary 
to summon her before the church session ; she explained that 
it was not hers, but her husband's, and disclaimed belief in 
it. She was rebuked for allowing it in her room. The 
husband, hearing of the rebuke, wrote me an angry letter 
justifying his fetich. He said in substance: 

"You white people don't know anything about black man's 
' fashions. ' You say you trust God for everything, but in your 
own country you put up an iron rod over your houses to protect 



PHILOSOPHY — CHARMS AND AMULETS 85 

yourselves from death by lightning; and you trust in it the 
while that you still believe in God ; and you call it ' elec- 
tricity ' and civilization. And you say it 's all right. I 
call this thing of mine — this charm — ' medicine ' ; and I 
hung it over my wife's bed to keep away death by the arts of 
those who hate her ; and I trust in it while still believing in 
God. And you think me a heathen ! " It was explained to 
him that in the use of the lightning-rod white men rever- 
ently recognized God in His own natural forces, but that his 
fetich dishonored God, ignored Him, and was a distinct recog- 
nition of a supposed power that was claimed to be able to act 
independently of God; that I trusted to the lightning-rod 
under God, while he trusted to his fetich outside of God. 

For every human passion or desire of every part of our 
nature, for our thousand necessities or wishes, a fetich can be 
made, its operation being directed to the attainment of one 
specified wish, and limited in power only by the possible 
existence of some more powerful antagonizing spirit. 

This, hung on the plantation fence or from the branches 
of plants in the garden, is either to prevent theft or to 
sicken the thief; hung over the doorway of the house, to 
bar the entrance of evil; hung from the bow of the canoe, 
to insure a successful voyage; worn on the arm in hunt- 
ing, to assure an accurate aim; worn on any part of one's 
person, to give success in loving, hating, planting, fish- 
ing, buying, and so forth, through the whole range of daily 
work and interests. 

Some kinds, worn on a bracelet or necklace, are to ward off 
sickness. The new-born infant has a health-knot tied about 
its neck, wrist, or loins. Down to the day of oldest age, 
every one keeps on multiplying or renewing or altering 
these life talismans. 

If of the charge at Balaklava it was said, " This is magni- 
ficent, but it is not war," I may say of these heathen, "Such 
faith is magnificent, though it be folly." The hunter going 
out, certain of success, returns empty-handed; the warrior 
bearing on his breast a fetich panoply, which he is confident 



86 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

will turn aside a bullet, comes back wounded; every one is 
some day foiled in his cherished plan. Do they lose their 
faith ? No, not in the system, — their f etichism ; but in the 
special material object of their faith — their fetich — they do. 
Going to the oganga whom they had paid for concocting that 
now disappointing amulet, they tell him of its failure. He 
readily replies: "Yes, 1 know. You have an enemy who 
possesses a fetich containing a spirit more powerful than 
yours, which made your bullet miss its mark, which caused 
your opponent's spear to wound you. Yours is no longer of 
use ; it 's dead. Come, pay me, and I will make you a charm 
containing a spirit still more powerful." 

The old fetich hitherto jealously guarded, and which 
would not have been sold for any consideration, is now 
thrown away or sold to the foreign curio -hunter. 

A native heathen Akele chief, Kasa, my friend and host 
in the Ogowe, in 1874, showed me a string of shells, bones, 
horns, wild-cat tails, and so forth, each with its magic com- 
pound, which he said could turn aside bullets. In a friendly 
way he dared me to fire at him with my sixteen-repeater 
Winchester rifle. I did not believe he meant it; but, on his 
taking his stand a few paces distant, he did not quail under 
my steady aim, nor even at the click of the trigger. I, of 
course, desisted, apparently worsted. Two years later, Kasa 
was charged by an elephant he had wounded, and was pierced 
by its tusks. His attendants drove off the beast; the fear- 
fully lacerated man survived long enough to accuse twelve 
of his women and other slaves of having bewitched his gun, 
and thus causing it only to wound instead of killing the 
elephant. On that charge four of the accused were put 
to death. 

Both men and women may become aganga on voluntary 
choice, and after a course of instruction by an oganga. 

" There is generally a special person in a tribe who knows 
these things, and is able to work them. He has more power 
over spirits than other men have, and is able to make them 
do what he likes. He can heal sickness, he can foretell the 




Fetich Doctor. 
(The triangular patch of hair is the professional tonsure.) 



PHILOSOPHY — CHARMS AND AMULETS 87 

future, he can change a thing into something else, or a man 
into a lower animal, or a tree, or anything; he can also as- 
sume such transformations himself at will. He uses means 
to bring about such results; he knows about herbs, he has 
also recourse to rubbing, to making images of affected parts 
of the body, and to various other arts. Very frequently he 
is regarded as inspired. It is the spirit dwelling in him which 
brings about the wonderful results; without the spirit he 
could not do anything." 1 

Though these magicians possess power, its joy has its 
limitations; for, becoming possessed by a familiar spirit, 
through whose aid they make their invocations and incanta- 
tions and under whose influence they fall into cataleptic 
trances or are thrilled with Delphic rages, if they should 
happen to offend that "familiar," it may destroy them by 
" eating " out their life, as their phrase is. On Corisco 
Island, in 1863, a certain man had acquired prominence as 
a magic doctor; he finally died of consumption. His friends 
began a witchcraft investigation to find out who had "killed " 
him. A post-mortem being made, cavities were found in the 
lungs. Ignorant of disease, they thereupon dropped the in- 
vestigation, saying that his own "witch " had "eaten " him. 

Captain Guy Burrows, a British officer, formerly in the 
service of the Kongo Free-State, left it unwilling to be a 
participant in the fearful atrocities allowed by the King of 
Belgium; and he has recently made a scathing exposure of 
the doings of Belgian agents that have made the Kongo a 
slave-ground of worse horrors than existed in the old days of 
the export slave-trade. He thus jocularly describes what he 
saw of fetich at the town of Matadi on the Kongo, where 
there is an English Baptist Mission: "Outside the small 
area, under the direct influence of the mission, there is but 
one deity, — ■ the fetich. The heathen in his blindness, in 
bowing down to wood and stone, bows, as Kipling says, to 
'wood for choice.' He carves a more or less grotesque face; 
and the rest is a matter of taste. I came across one figure 

1 Menzies, History of Religion, p. 73. 



88 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

whose principal ornament consisted of a profusion of ten- 
penny nails and a large cowrie shell. 1 But anything will 
do; an old tin teapot is another favorite fetich decoration. 
I have generally found that the uglier they are, the more they 
seem to be feared and reverenced. 

" The fetich is sometimes inclined to be a nuisance. On one 
occasion I wanted to build an out-house at the far end of a 
plantation, where tools and other implements might be stored. 
I was told by the chief, however, that this was fetich ground, 
and that terrible misfortunes would follow any attempt to 
build on it. I tried to get some closer idea of the fetich, but 
could get no more material information than a recital of vague 
terrors of the kind that frighten children at night. So I be- 
gan building my out-house, during the course of which opera- 
tion some monkeys came and sat in the trees, highly interested 
in the proceedings. In some indefinite way I gathered that 
the fetich power was regarded as being invested in these 
monkeys, or that they were the embodiment of the fetich 
idea, or anything else you please. But I could not have my 
work interfered with by the ghosts of a lot of chattering apes, 
and the fears of those big children the natives; so I witch- 
doctored the monkeys after an improved recipe of my own, — 
I shot the lot. Thereafter the spell was supposed to be 
lifted, and no farther objections were raised; but the empty 
cartridge cases were seized upon by the men as charms against 
any further manifestations in the same place. I am glad to 
say none occurred; the spell I had used was too potent! " 

Captain Burrows was probably an efficient administrator. 
But, like many foreigners, he evidently chose to ride, rough 
shod, over natives' prejudices, regarding them as idle super- 
stitions, and unable or unwilling to investigate their philoso- 
phy. I see, however, from his story, that he had gotten hold 

1 Those nails were not mere " ornaments." They were the records of the num- 
ber of persons who had been transfixed by death or disease under the power of 
that fetich idol. A similar custom is known in the West Indies and in the 
southern United States. For every pin stuck into a wax figure intended to 
represent the person to be injured, some sickness or other evil will fall on him. 
Wilkie Collins also utilized this superstition in his novel, " I say, No." — R. H. N. 



PHILOSOPHY — CHARMS AND AMULETS 89 

of a part of the truth. That ground on which he desired to 
build was probably an old graveyard. The native chief very 
naturally did not wish it to be disturbed. Monkeys that 
gather on the trees in the vicinity of a graveyard are sup- 
posed to be possessed by the spirits of those buried there. 
An ordinary individual would have been forcibly prevented 
had he attempted what Captain Burrows did. He had a 
foreign government at his back, and the natives submitted. 
Their dead and their monkeys, sacred pro tempore, had suc- 
cumbed to the superior power of the white man's cartridges. 
Their only satisfaction was to retain the empty shells as 
souvenirs. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE FETICH — A WORSHIP 

WORSHIP is an eminent part of every form of religion, 
but it is not essential to it. True, most religions 
have some form of worship. But a belief would still be 
a religion, even if it were so insignificant or so degraded 
or so indifferent as not to care to express itself in rites or 
ceremonies. 

Fetichism, whose claim to a right to be reckoned as a 
religion some have been disposed to dispute, expresses itself 
by most of the visible and audible means used in the cults of 
other forms of religion. 

The motives also that prompt to the performance of religious 
rites are not to enter into the question whether the beliefs 
associated with them are worthy to be dignified by the name 
" religion." Motives may vary widely, e. g., love in an evan- 
gelical Christian, pride in a Pharisee, sensual lust in a 
follower of Islam and in a Mormon, and fear in the fetich 
worshipper. Those motives, mixed perhaps with other con- 
siderations, are the dominant factor in the government of the 
religious life of each. 

We have already seen in the previous chapter that the 
religious thought of the believer in fetichism does not concern 
his soul or its future. The evils he would escape are not 
moral or spiritual. The sense of a great need that makes him 
look for help outside of himself is not based on a desire to 
obey God's will, but on his and some spirit's co-relation to the 
great needs of this mortal life. 

The salvation sought being a purely physical one, the 
thoughts that direct the use of means to that end are limited 



THE FETICH — A WORSHIP 91 

to physical needs, and largely to physical agencies. But not 
entirely : for one of these agencies, as already mentioned in 
the previous chapter, is prayer ; other agencies are sacrificial 
offerings, and the use of amulet charms, or talismans, known 
as fetiches. 

1. Fetich Worship as performed by Sacrifice and other Offer- 
ings. Sacrifice is an element in all real worship, if by sacri- 
fice, in the widest sense, may be understood the devoting 
of any object from a common to a sacred use, and this irre- 
spective of the actual value of the gift (as is the case also 
with Chinese paper imitation money scattered around the 
grave, in Chinese funerals). The intention of the giver en- 
nobles it; the spirit being supposed in some vague way to 
be gratified by the respectful recognition of itself, and even 
to be pleased sometimes by the gift itself. 

(1) Thus the stones heaped by passers-by at the base of 
some great tree or rock, the leaf cast from the passing 
canoe toward a point of land on the river, though intrinsi- 
cally valueless, and useless to the ombwiri of the spot, are 
accepted as acknowledgments of that ombwiri's presence. 

"All day we kept passing trees or rocks on which were 
placed little heaps of stones or bits of wood; in passing 
these, each of my men added a new stone or bit of wood, or 
even a tuft of grass. This is a tribute to the spirits, the 
general precaution to insure a safe return. These people 
have a vague sort of Supreme Being called Lesa, who has 
good and evil passions ; but here (Plateau of Lake Tan- 
ganyika), as everywhere else, the Musimo, or spirits of the 
ancestors, are a leading feature in the beliefs. They are pro- 
pitiated, as elsewhere, by placing little heaps of stones about 
their favorite haunts. At certain periods of the year the 
people make pilgrimages to the mountain of Fwambo-Liamba, 
on the summit of which is a sort of small altar of stones. 
There they deposit bits of wood, to which are attached scraps 
of calico, flowers, or beads ; this is to propitiate Lesa. 

" After harvest, for instance, they make such an offering. 
So when a girl becomes marriageable, she takes food with her, 



92 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

and goes up to the mountain for several days. When she 
returns, the other women lead her in procession through the 
villages, waving long tufts of grass and palms." 1 

(2) Other gifts are supposed to be actually utilized by the 
spirit in some essential way. In some part of the long single 
street of most villages is built a low hut, sometimes not 
larger than a dog-kennel, in which, among all tribes, are hung 
charms ; or by which is growing a consecrated plant (a lily, a 
cactus, a euphorbia, or a ficus). In some tribes a rudely 
carved human (generally female) figure stands in that hut, as 
an idol. Idols are rare among most of the coast tribes, but 
are common among all the interior tribes. That they are not 
now frequently seen on the Coast is, I think, not due to a 
lack of faith in them, but perhaps to a slight sense of civilized 
shame. The idol has been the material object most de- 
nounced by missionaries in their sermons against heathenism. 
The half-awakened native hides it, or he manufactures it 
for sale to curio-hunters. A really valued idol, supposed to 
contain a spirit, he will not sell. He does not always hide 
his fetich charm worn on his person; for it passes muster 
in his explanation of its use as a " medicine." 

That idol, charm, or plant, as the case may be, is believed 
for the time to be the residence of a spirit which is to be 
placated by offerings of some kind of food. I have seen in 
those sacred huts a dish of boiled plantains (often by for- 
eigners miscalled " bananas ") or a plate of fish. This food 
is generally not removed till it spoils. Sometimes, where the 
gift is a very large one, a feast is made ; people and spirit are 
supposed to join in the festival, and nothing is left to spoil. 
That it is of use to the spirit is fully believed ; but just how, 
few have been able to tell me. Some say that the " life " or 
essence of the food has been eaten by the spirit ; only the form 
of the vegetable or flesh remaining to be removed. 

(3) Blood sacrifices are common. In any great emergency 
a fowl with its blood is laid at that low hut's door. In time 
of great danger, an expected pestilence, a threatened assault 

1 Decle. 



THE FETICH — A WORSHIP 93 

by enemies, or some severe illness of a great man or woman, a 
goat or sheep is sacrificed. 

At the entrance to a village the way is often barred by a 
temporary light fence, only a narrow arched gateway of sap- 
lings being left open. These saplings are wreathed with 
leaves or flowers. That fence, frail as it is, is intended as a 
bar to evil spirits, for from those arched saplings hang fetich 
charms. When actual war is coming, this street entrance is 
barricaded by logs, behind which real fight is to be made 
against human, not spiritual, foes. The light gateway is 
sometimes further guarded by a sapling pinned to the ground 
horizontally across the narrow threshold. An entering stran- 
ger must be careful to tread over and not on it. 

In an expected great evil the gateway is sometimes 
sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed goat or sheep. The 
flesh is not wasted ; it is eaten by the villagers, and especially 
by the magic doctor. Does not this look like a memory of 
a tradition of the Passover and its paschal lamb ? And does 
it not suggest some thought of a blood atonement ? 

(4) I have not actually seen, or even heard of human sacri- 
fices in the tribes I have personally visited. But on the ad- 
jacent Upper Guinea Coast, until ten years ago, there were 
human sacrifices to the sacred crocodiles of the rivers of the 
Niger Delta. In the oil rivers of that same coast there was, 
until recently, an annual sacrifice (as in the ancient Nile days) 
of a maiden to the river spirits of trade, for success in foreign 
commerce. 

Treaties with foreign civilized nations have now prohibited 
this sacrifice, but the maiden has not gained much in the 
change. Instead of one being sacrificed to a brute crocodile 
to please the spirit of trade, hundreds are prostituted to please 
brutal, dissolute foreigners. 

The thousands of captives butchered at the " annual cus- 
tom" of Dahomey were claimed by its successive kings, in 
their answer to the protests of the ambassadors from civilized 
nations, to be required as offerings to the safety of the nation, 
the omission of which would be punished by the loss of the 



94 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

king's own life; Fearful as that annual barbarity was, I do 
not think that those kings should properly be called " blood- 
thirsty." It was their religion. All the more dreadful the 
religion that called for such deeds ! 

Here, again, the question presents itself whether Africa has 
gained much in the substitution of wicked white representa- 
tives of civilization for the heathen black representatives of 
fetichism. The Kongo River was rescued from the cruelties 
and loss of life in the foreign slave-trade, only to be subjected 
to greater cruelties, in its miscalled " Free State," under the 
control of Belgium, at the hands of men like Major Lothaire. 

The following remarks of Menzies 1 on the use of sacri- 
fice by primitive man are descriptive of the interior tribes of 
Africa to-day : " Sacrifice is an invariable feature of early re- 
ligion. Wherever gods are worshipped, gifts and offerings 
are made to them of one kind or another. It is in this way 
that, in antiquity at least, the relation with the deity was re- 
newed, if it had been slackened or broken, or strengthened 
and made sure. Sacrifice and worship are, in the ancient 
world, identical terms. The nature of the offering and the 
mode of presenting it are infinitely various, but there is 
always sacrifice in one form or another. Different deities of 
course receive different gifts ; the tree has its roots watered, 
or trophies of battle or of the chase are hung upon its 
branches ; horses are thrown into the sea. But of primitive 
sacrifice generally we may affirm that it consists of such food 
and drink as men themselves partake of. Whether it be the 
fruit of the field or the firstlings of the flock that is offered at 
the sacred stone, whether the offering is burnt before the 
god or set down and left near him, or whether he is sum- 
moned to come down from the sky or to travel from the far 
country to which he may have gone, it is of the materials of 
the meal that the sacrifice consists. In some cases it ap- 
pears to be thought that the god consumes the offering, as 
when Fire is worshipped with offerings which he burns up, 
or when a fissure in the earth closes upon a victim ; but in 

1 History of Religion, pp. 65, 69. 



THE FETICH — A WORSHIP 95 

most cases it is only the spirit or finer essence that the god 
enjoys ; the rest he leaves to men. And thus sacrifice is 
generally accompanied by a meal. The offering is presented 
to the god whole, but the worshippers help to eat it. The god 
gets the savor of it which rises in the air towards him, while 
the more material part is devoured below." 

The testimony of travellers in other parts of Africa, distant 
thousands of miles from the West Coast, show that the prac- 
tice of offerings is almost identical all over the southern third 
of the continent, the lines of latitude of Bantu tribes being 
conterminous with their language and their religion. 

Arnot 1 says that in South Africa, "when going to pray, 
the Barotse make offerings to the spirits of their forefathers 
under a tree, bush, or grove planted for the purpose ; and 
they take a larger or a smaller offering, according to the 
measure of their request. If the offering be beer, they pour 
it upon the ground ; if cloth, it is tied to a horn stuck in the 
ground ; if an ox be slaughtered, the blood is poured over the 
horn, which, in fact, is their altar." (Ps. cxviii. 27.) 

In that same region, among the Barotse, " Nothing of im- 
portance can be sanctified without a human sacrifice, in most 
cases a child. First the fingers and toes are cut off, and the 
blood is sprinkled on the boat, drum, house, or whatsoever 
may be the object in view. The victim is then killed, ripped 
up, and thrown into the river." 

Decl& also 2 describes the religious habits of the Barotse 
tribes of Southern Central Africa : " They chiefly worship the 
souls of their ancestors. When any misfortune happens, the 
witch doctor divines with knuckle-bones whether the ancestor 
is displeased, and they go to the grave and offer up sacrifice 
of grain or honey. . . . They also bring to the tombs cooked 
meats, which they leave there a few minutes and then eat. 
When they go to pray by a grave, they also leave some small 
white beads. Whilst an Englishman was journeying to Lialui, 
he passed near a little wood where there lay a very venerated 
chief. The boatmen stopped, and having sacrificed some 

1 Garenganze, p. 77. 2 Three Years in Savage Africa. 



96 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

cooked millet, their headman designated a man to offer up 
a prayer, which ran thus: 'You see us; we are worn out 
travellers, and our belly is empty ; inspire the white man, for 
whom we row, to give us food to fill our stomachs.' " 

Among the Wanyamwezi, " Every chief has near his hut a 
Musimo hut, in which the dead are supposed to dwell, and 
where sacrifices and offerings must be made. Meat and flour 
are deposited in the Musimo huts, and are not, as with many 
other peoples, consumed afterwards. The common people 
also have their Musimo huts, but they are smaller than that 
of the chief, and the offerings they make are, of course, not 
so important as his. " 

The Wanyamwezi being great travellers, they have num- 
berless ways of propitiating the Musimo. " The night before 
starting they put big patches of moistened flour on their faces 
and breasts. On the way, if by chance they are threatened 
with war or any other difficulty, some of them go on ahead 
in the early morning for about a hundred yards along the 
path over which they are about to travel. Then they place a 
hand on the ground, and throw flour over it in such a manner 
as to leave the impression of a hand on the soil. At the same 
time they ' wish ' hard that the journey may go off well. 
On the march, from time to time each of them will deposit in 
the same spot a twig of wood or a stone in such a way that a 
great heap gets collected. If they halt in the midst of high 
grass each will plait a handful of grass, which they tie to- 
gether so as to make a kind of bower. 1 In the forest, if they 
are pressed for time, each will make a cut with a blow of a 
hatchet in a tree ; but if they have time, they will cut down 
trees, lop off the branches, and place these poles against a big 
tree ; in certain places I have seen stacks of hundreds of them 
around a single tree. Sometimes they will strip pieces of bark 
from the trees, and stick them on the branches, and at others 
they will place a pole supported by two trees right over the 
path. On it they will hang up a broken gourd, or an old 
box made of bark. On some occasions they will even erect a 

1 I saw the same on the Oerowe. — K. H. N. 



THE FETICH— A WORSHIP 97 

little hut made of straw to the Musimo on the road itself ; 
but this is usually done when they are going on a hunting 
expedition, and not on a journey. Near the villages, where 
two roads meet, are usually found whole piles of old pots, 
gourds, and pieces of iron. 1 When a hunter starts for the 
chase, he prays to the Musimo to give him good luck. If he 
kills any big game, he places before the hut of his Musimo 
the head of the beast he has killed, and inside a little of the 
flesh." 2 

2. Just as worship is an eminent part of religion, prayer 
is usually a chief part of religious worship. But in fetich- 
ism, though it undeniably has a part, it is not prominent, and 
not often formal or public. It plays a less obvious and less 
frequent part than either sacrifices or the use of charms. 

" Prayer is the ordinary concomitant of sacrifice ; the wor- 
shipper explains the reason of the gift, and urges the deity to 
accept it and to grant the help that is needed. The prayers 
of the earliest stage are offered on emergencies, and often 
appear to be intended to attract the attention of the god who 
may be engaged in another direction. The requests they con- 
tain are of the most primary sort. Food is asked for, success 
in hunting or fishing, strength of arm, rain, a good harvest, 
children, and so forth. They have a ring of urgency ; they 
state the claims the worshipper has on the god, and mention 
his former offerings as well as the present one ; they praise 
the power and the past acts of the deity, and adjure him by 
his whole relationship to his people (and also to his enemies) 
to grant their requests." 3 

Fetich prayer may be and is offered without restriction by 
any one, young or old, male or female; but to my knowl- 
edge it is seldom used by the young. A very intelligent 
woman, a member of my Batanga church, tells me that when 
she was a child she possessed a fetich supposed to be very 
valuable, which she had inherited from her father. She 
says that when she would be going into the forest or 

1 These piles I have found at almost every village I have visited. — K. II. N. 

2 Decle, p. 346. 3 Menzies. 

7 



98 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

where she expected difficulty or danger or trouble or was 
anxious for success, she would hold the fetich in her hand, 
and with eye and thought directed toward it and the spirit it 
was supposed to contain, would utter a short petition for aid 
and protection. 

But practically formal prayer is rarely made. Ejaculatory 
prayer, however, is made constantly, in the uttering of caba- 
listic words, phrases, or sentences adopted by or assigned to 
almost every one by parent or doctor. They are uttered by 
all ages and both sexes at any time, as a defence from evil, 
on all sorts of occasions, ■ — e.g., when one sneezes, stumbles, 
or is otherwise startled, etc. 

The prayers which I have heard were of adults. On a 
journey, about 1876, stopping for a night in a village on the 
Ogowe River, I saw the venerable chief stand out in the open 
street. He addressed the spirits of the air, begging them, 
"Come not to my town! " He recounted his good deeds — 
praising himself as just, honest, and kind to his neighbors — 
as reason why no evil should befall him, and closed with an 
impassioned appeal to the spirits to stay away. 

At another time, about 1879, in another Ogowe village, 
where a man's son had been wounded, and a bleeding artery 
which had been successfully closed had just broken open 
again, and the hemorrhage, if not promptly checked, would 
probably be fatal, the father ran out of the hut, wildly gesticu- 
lating towards the sky, saying, " Go away ! go away ! O 
ye spirits! why do you come to kill my son?" And he 
continued for some time in a strain of alternate pleading and 
protestation. 

In another case I saw a woman who rushed into the street 
objurgating the spirits, and in the next breath humbly sup- 
plicating them, who, she said, were vexing her child that was 
lying in convulsions. 

Observe that while these were distinctly prayers, appeals 
for mercy, pathetic, agonizing protestations, there was no 
praise, no love, no thanks, no confession of sin, — only a 
long, pitiful deprecation of evil. 



THE FETICH — A WORSHIP 99 

There are also prayers of blessing. Parents in farewells 
to their children, or a chief to his parting guest, or any grate- 
ful recipient of a valued gift, will take the head or hand of 
the child, guest, or donor, and saying, "Ibata!" (blessing), 
or adding a cabalistic ejaculation, will sometimes "blow" a 
blessing. From this custom has arisen the statement in some 
books of travel that it was an African mode of honoring a 
guest to spit on his hand. It is true that the sudden and 
violent expulsion of the breath in "blowing" the "Ibata" 
from the tip of the tongue is apt to be followed by an ejection 
of more or less saliva, but the kernel of the custom lies in 
the prayer of blessing accompanying the act. 

In auguries made by the mf umu, or witch-doctor, among the 
Wanyamwezi, " the mfumu holds a kind of religious service ; 
he begins by addressing the spirits of their forefathers, im- 
ploring them not to visit their anger upon their descendants. 
This prayer he offers up kneeling, bowing and bending to 
the ground from time to time. Then he rises, and commences 
a hymn of praise to the ancestors, and all join in the chorus. 
Then, seizing his little gourds, he executes a pas seul, after 
which he bursts out into song again, but this time singing as 
one inspired." 1 

3. The third mode of worship has been already mentioned 
in a previous chapter, viz., the use of charms or fetiches. 
This is the mode most frequently used ; and to the descrip- 
tions of their forms of preparation and manner, universality, 
and the various effects of their use, the following chapters 
are devoted. 



iDecle. 



LofC. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE FETICH — WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — 
SORCERY 

HUNDREDS of acts and practices in the life of Chris- 
tian households in civilized lands pass muster before 
the bar of aesthetic propriety and society, and even of the 
church, as not only harmless and allowable, but as commend- 
able, and conducive to kindness, good-will, and healthful 
social entertainment; but in the doing of these acts few are 
aware of the fact that some of them in their origin were 
heathenish and in their meaning idolatrous, and that long 
ago they would have brought on the doer church censure. 

Norse legends and Celtic and Gaelic folk-lore abound in 
superstitions that were held by our forefathers in honor of 
false gods and demons. Their Christian descendants, to the 
present generations in Great Britain and the United States, 
delight our children with the beautifully printed fairy tale, 
forgetting, or not even knowing, that once, long ago, that 
tale was a tale of sin. The superstitious peasant of Germany, 
Ireland, and other European countries, while as at least a 
nominal son of the church he worships God, fears the machi- 
nations of trolls and the "good little people," and wards off 
their dreaded influence by vocal and material charms, — a 
practice for which the African Negro just emerging from 
heathenism is debarred church-membership. The practice 
is common to the three, — the untaught heathen, the ignorant 
peasant, and the enlightened Christian, — but its significance 
differs for each. To the vChristian it is only a national or 
household tradition, without religious or moral significance, 
and his belief in the power of the charm is seldom seri- 
ously held. To the peasant the practice is also a tradition; 



WITCHCRAFT— A WHITE ART — SORCERY 101 

it is not his religion, but he thinks that somehow under the 
divine Providence, in whom he believes and whom he wor- 
ships in the church, it will be conducive to his physical 
well-being. But to the heathen it is a part of his religion, 
and leads to the exclusion of the true God, whom he does 
not know, or at least does not worship. 

In our Christian homes, around the Christmas tree, with 
all its holy, happy thoughts, we decorate with the holly bush 
and we hang the mistletoe bough, never thinking that the 
December festival itself was originally a heathen feast, and 
that our superstitious forefathers spread the holly as a guard 
against evil fairies, and hung the mistletoe as part of the 
ceremonies of a Druid's human sacrifice. 

The superstitious African Negro does precisely the same 
thing to-day, because he believes in witchcraft; the holly 
bush not growing in his tropical air, he has substituted the 
cayenne pepper bush. The witch or wizard whom he fears 
can no more pass over that pepper leaf with its red pods than 
the Irish fairy can dare the holly leaf with its red berries. 
Superstitious acts are thus rooted in us all, heathen and 
Christian, the world over; only with this great difference, 
— that to the Christian they bear no religious or even moral 
significance ; to the heathen their entire raison d'etre is that 
they are his religion, or rather part of his worship in the 
practice of his religion. 

In emerging from his heathenism and abandoning his fetich- 
ism for the acceptance of Christianity, no part of the process 
is more difficult to the African Negro than the entire laying 
aside of superstitious practices, even after his assertion that 
they do not express his religious belief. From being a thief, 
he can grow up an honest man ; from being a liar, he can be- 
come truthful; from being indolent, he can become diligent; 
from being a polygamist, he can become a monogamist ; from 
a status of ignorance and brutality, he can develop into 
educated courtesy. And yet in his secret thought, while he 
would not wear a fetich, he believes in its power, and dreads 
its influence if possibly it should be directed against himself. 



102 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Some church-members thus believing and fearing do wear 
fetiches, claiming that their use is simply defensive. In their 
moral thought they make a distinction, which to them is clear 
and satisfactory in the present stage of the enlightenment of 
their conscience, between the defensive and the offensive use 
of the fetich, — the latter is a black art; the former is a 
white art. Only the heathen and non-Christian element 
of the community practise the black art. They ignore not 
God's existence, but deny that He plays any part in the 
economy of human life. They believe in evil spirits, and 
that they themselves can have association with them, by 
which they may obtain power for all purposes ; they use en- 
chantments to obtain that power ; and having it, or profess- 
ing to have it, they exercise it for the gratification of revenge 
or avarice, or in other ways to injure other persons. They 
become, in heart, murderers; and if occasion serve, by poi- 
son or other means, are willing to become actual murderers. 
The community regards them as criminals, and executes 
them as such when it is proved that they used black art to 
accomplish the death of some one who has recently died. 

The Christian, of course, will practise none of the black 
arts, but believing in their existence and power as permitted 
to the Evil One under the divine government, he is willing to 
allow himself to use, as a counter-influence, a fetich of the 
white art in self-defence. 

The discussion of the morality of this white art is often 
a difficult question in the church sessions in the discipline 
of some offending church-member. Few of the natives have 
emerged so far into the light as to stand squarely and fully 
with the missionary in his civilized attitude toward this 
question of the allowability of a fetich charm under any cir- 
cumstances. Even the missionary, if he is wise and would 
not be unjust, will look with the leniency of charity on an 
offence of this kind in the case of a convert only lately come 
out of heathenism, which he would not or should not exer- 
cise toward a fortune-teller or hoodoo practitioner under the 
broad light of civilization. 



WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — SORCERY 103 

In electing men as ruling elders in the church session, or 
accepting candidates for the gospel ministry, while a certain 
degree of intellectuality is desired, and a certain amount of 
education required, we look first and always for the quality 
of their moral fibre, whether or not it be untrammelled by the 
fetich cult. 

A rare and noble example of utter freedom from any such 
superstitious bias was the late Rev. Ibia ja Ikenge. From 
his youth, believing in, using, and practising fetich white art, 
when he became a Christian his conversion was so clear and 
decided that he was soon made a ruling elder, was accepted 
as a candidate, grew up to licensure as a probationer, sub- 
sequently reached ordination to the ministry, and finally be- 
came pastor of the Corisco church of his own Benga tribe. 
Honored during his ministerial life by all classes, foreigners 
and natives, he died regretted by all, even by the heathen 
whose sins he had unsparingly denounced. But there are 
few so morally clear as he. 

A few years ago, while I was in charge of the Gabun 
church, in the Mpongwe tribe, at the oldest station and out- 
wardly the most civilized part of the mission, I was surprised 
by a charge of witchcraft practice laid against a very lady- 
like woman who was one of my intimate native friends. I 
had known her from her childhood ; had admired her intelli- 
gence, vivacity, and purity; had unfortunately helped her 
into a disastrous marriage from which, as her pastor, I after- 
wards rescued her with legal grounds for divorce ; and sub- 
sequently she had married a Sierra Leone man who professed 
to be a Christian. It was discovered that she had hanging 
over the doorway in her bedroom a fetich regularly made 
and bought from a fetich doctor. On trial of the case, she 
denied that it was hers, stated that it was her husband's, 
admitted that she knew of its existence and use, that she 
allowed it to be placed in the usual spot for warding off evil 
spirits, and was not clear in denial of belief that it might be 
of some use to her in that way. 

My three ruling elders looked on the case more lightly than 



104 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

even I was charitably disposed to do, and my own duty as 
a judge was obscured by my friendship for the accused. It 
was a great pain for me to have even to rebuke a lady I had 
so loved and trusted. She kept her anger wonderfully under 
control while in the session meeting; but she resented the 
rebuke, broke our friendship, and subsequently sought to in- 
jure me by slander. If there was any doubt about her com- 
plicity with the fetich, there was no doubt about the fact of 
her effort to injure me. I did not prosecute her (as I would 
have done had she slandered any one else), lest I be suspected 
of making my position of session moderator an engine for per- 
sonal revenge. She subsequently made a noble reparation. 
She still affirms that she does not believe in fetich, and re- 
mains in "good standing" in the church, while occasionally 
hanging a charm on her garden fence for its "moral effect " 
on trespassers. 

Lately a fellow missionary told me that in a conversation 
with certain natives, professed Christians, they admitted their 
fear lest their nail-clippings should be used against them by 
an enemy, and candidly acknowledged that when they pared 
their nails they threw the pieces on the thatch of the low 
roof of their house. 

The missionary was surprised, and, perhaps with a little 
suspicion or perhaps as a test, turning to a man present who 
had remained silent during the discussion, said, " And you — 
what do you do with your parings?" He honestly replied, 
" I throw them on the roof ! " And this man is an elder, and 
had been advanced to be a local preacher. There is no ex- 
pectation of his ordination, for though he can preach a good 
sermon, he is lacking in all other abilities desirable in a 
minister. He is probably fifty years of age, and for forty 
years has been in mission employ of some kind, and living in 
the mission household much of that time. But this mission 
association has not been to him the benefit it would have been 
to almost any one else ; for, being of slave origin, he seemed 
to prefer to keep aloof from the free-born, grew up without 
companionship, and is extremely secretive. Though a Chris- 



WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — SORCERY 105 

tian and a good man, he had not opened his inner life to all 
the ennobling influences of the light. 

A difficulty, admitted by the missionary in judging of the 
morality of the use of a fetich charm, is the explanation 
offered by the natives, even by some professedly Christian, 
that the charm is of the nature of a "medicine," and, 
generally, actually has medicines in it. It is known to the 
native that civilized and Christian therapeutics recognize 
a great variety of medicinal articles, solid and liquid, and 
that they are employed in a variety of ways, — as lotions, 
ointments, and powders; and that some are drunk, some are 
rubbed into the skin, and some are worn on the body, — e. #., a 
sachet of sulphur in skin diseases, or of pungent essential oils 
to fend off insects, — and that certain herbs whose scent is 
attractive to fish are rubbed on the fisherman's hook. The 
missionary knows, too, that certain native medicinal plants 
are used, and with efficiency, in precisely these ways and 
with precisely these reasons as, at least in part, the ground 
for their use. 

Truth gains nothing by an indiscriminate denunciation of 
all native "medicine"; for the native knows by the personal 
experience of himself and his observation of others that a 
given "medicine" has helped or cured himself and others. 
His belief in this case is not a mere theory; it is actual fact. 
The missionary loses in the native's respect, and in the na- 
tive's trust in his judgment or the value of his word, if he 
asserts unqualifiedly that "native medicine" is "foolishness," 
especially if, as was the case before the desirability of medical 
missionaries was as generally recognized by the church as it 
now is, the missionary was able to give him no substitute for 
the magic doctor. The native Christian's sense of justice 
was aggrieved at being disciplined for the use of a medicine 
in sickness, which experience told him had been of benefit 
and in place of which the missionary offered him no other. 

The native's error in his judgment of the case and the 
missionary's justification of his position lay in the idolatrous 
ceremonies that are associated with the administration of the 



106 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

medicine. In the native's ignorant mind, and in the distress 
of his disease, he was unable to see a distinction between the 
therapeutic action of a drug and the mode of its administra- 
tion. In fact, to him that mode may be as important a factor 
contributive to the desired result as the drug itself. In the 
heathen belief of the native doctor it is admittedly true that 
the administration, not the drug, is the important factor, both 
mode of administration and the drug itself deriving all their 
efficiency from a spirit claimed by the magician to be under 
his control, which is in some vague way pleased to be asso- 
ciated with the particular drug and those special ceremonies. 
The native doctor does not understand therapeutics as such. 
Some one of his ancestors happened to observe that a certain 
leaf, bark, or root exhibited internally proved efficient in 
cases where the symptoms indicated a certain disease which he 
had failed to cure by his dances, drums, auguries, and other 
enchantments. Not knowing the modus operandi of the drug 
itself, he had jumped to the conclusion that he had finally 
happily found the adjuvant herb necessary to please the 
spirit for whom he had been making enchantments, without 
which herb the spirit had hitherto withheld its assistance. 
And ever afterward the secret of this particular drug was 
guarded by his family, the knowledge of its tree being handed 
down as an heirloom, the secret kept as jealously and care- 
fully as the recipe for the proprietary medicine of any quack 
in civilized lands. In his medical ethics there was no quce 
prosunt omnibus. 

The dividing line of morality between the fetich doctor 
and the Christian physician is a narrow but deep chasm. 
The latter knows that, with all his skill in physiology and 
the infallibility of his drug's indication, results lie in the 
hand of God, with whom are the issues of life and death, 
who has sovereignly and beneficently endowed certain plants 
or minerals with properties befitting certain pathological con- 
ditions. The former ignores God, and firmly believes that 
his own enchantments have subsidized the power of a spirit, 
so that the spirit itself is to enter into the body of the patient, 



WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — SORCERY 107 

and, searching through his vitals, drive out the antagoniz- 
ing spirit, which is the supposed actual cause of the disease. 
The etiology of disease is to the native obscure. His at- 
tempts at explanation are somewhat inconsistent; the sick- 
ness is spoken of as a disease, and yet the patient is said to 
be sick because of the presence of an evil spirit, which being 
driven out by the magician's benevolent spirit the patient 
will recover. 

The drug exhibited with the ceremonies by which the 
friendly spirit is induced to enter the body is entirely sec- 
ondary and adjuvant, and is not supposed to be any more 
efficient in producing a cure than was the Old Testament 
incense of the Temple ritual in obtaining an answer to prayer. 

But the drug is often a really valuable medicine, and does 
cure the patient. Yet the native Christian must be forbidden 
to submit to its use, because of the invariably associated 
heathen ceremonies. The magician alone knows from what 
plant the drug came, and he positively refuses to administer 
it unless its associated ceremonies are carefully observed. 
For the Christian to consent to do that, is to "kiss the 
calves" 1 of idolatrous Israel, or to partake of the "meats 
offered to idols." 2 

The manner of practising the white art by the magic 
doctor may be purely ritual without his making or the 
patient's wearing any material amulet, but the performance 
is none the less fetich in its character. 

According to the usual procedure an article is prepared 
with incantations referring to spiritual influences to be worn 
by the applicant either as a cure for an actually existing 
disease or any other expected danger, or, irrespective of 
disease, for the attainment of a desired object or for suc- 
cess in some cherished plan. Its application may be as 
limitless as the entire range of human desire. 

The first step in the process is the selection of an object 
in which to enclose the various articles deemed necessary to 
attract and please the spiritual being whose aid is to be in- 

1 Hosea xiii. 2. 2 Acts xv. 29. 



108 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

voked. In this selection it is not probable that superstitious 
or other moral consideration enters. It is simply a matter 
of taste as to shape or availability or convenience. The 
article usually chosen is a horn of a gazelle or young ante- 
lope, or of a goat. The ground for the choice is availa- 
bility; those animals are common. The horns are preserved 
and are therefore always at hand. They are small, light, and 
easily carried. They are durable, not liable to rust and de- 
cay, as would be an article of vegetable origin, and they 
have a convenient cavity. 

The next step in the process is the selection of the sub- 
stances which are to be packed into the hollow of the horn. 
These are of both animal and vegetable origin, but mostly 
vegetable. They may be very absurd to our civilized view, 
they may be disgusting and even filthy; but they are all 
ranked as "medicine," have actually some fitness to the end 
in view, as described in the previous chapter, and are to be 
as carefully regarded as are the ingredients of a physician's 
prescription by a druggist. Their absurdity must not militate 
against the view of them as "medicine," even to a civilized 
mind. We are not to forget that, all superstitious and 
fetich ideas aside, our own pharmacopoeia one hundred 
years ago contained animal products of supposed therapeutic 
value that were clumsy, annoying, and even disgusting. 
Indeed, it is only in very modern medicine that the profes- 
sion have thought it worth while to regard the matter of 
agreeable look and pleasant taste. Homoeopathy, even if we 
do not all believe in it, must be given credit for at least 
eliminating nauseous taste from the attributes of a good 
medicine, even of an emetic. 

From the wide range of substances, mineral, animal, and 
vegetable, the magic doctor takes generally some plant. 
Indeed, so associated is the doctor's thought of a tree and 
some spirit belonging to it, that an educated and very intelli- 
gent native chief at Gabun who still clings to many heathen 
practices, of whom recently I asked an explanation of fetich 
from the native point of view, said sententiously, "A prin- 



WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — SORCERY 109 

ciple of fetich comes from trees." This carried to me very 
little meaning. I asked him to explain at length. He did 
so. He said that in the long ago, while still his ancestors 
knew of God and had not entirely forgotten to give him some 
kind of worship, their medicine men were botanists, and, 
like Solomon, "spake of trees." The herbs and barks they 
used were employed solely for their own intrinsically cura- 
tive qualities. But as people became more degraded and 
"like people, like priest," the medicine men added a ritual of 
song, dances, incantations, and auguries by which to dignify 
their profession with mystery. As they grew in power, they 
added claims of spiritual influence, by which to impress their 
patients with fear and to exact obedience even from kings, 
until finally the idea of a spirit as the efficient agent in the 
cure was substituted for that of the drug itself, and fetich 
belief dominated all. 

The reason for the choice of one tree rather than another 
in a given case of sickness is almost impossible to find out. 
Perhaps there is a vague tradition of the fact that it 
was used long ago by those who first happened to discover 
that it had real medicinal quality, and the present generation 
continues to use it, though having forgotten what that quality 
was, or even that it had any intrinsic quality of its own, their 
etiology of disease assigning as the cause of all sickness the 
antagonistic presence of an evil spirit. 

The laity, heathen and Christian, positively do not know 
from what particular tree the leaf or piece of bark was ob- 
tained, and they would not be able to recognize it even if 
they were allowed to see it. They see only the dry powder 
or ashes. Even if the heathen laity were able to tell me, 
they will not do so. Even if they were bribed, I would have 
no certainty that they were showing me the plant that was 
actually used; for they would know that I would have no 
means of comparing specimens or of proving their deception. 
The native will tell foreigners many things for friendship or 
for regard, and he enjoys conversation with us ; but supersti- 
tion slams his heart's door shut when he is asked to reveal 



110 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

secrets of the spirits. His prompt thought is : " White man's 
knowledge has given him power. There is little left of land, 
authority, women, or wealth in my country that he has not 
seized. Shall I add to his power by telling him the secrets 
of my spirits?" Of course the magic doctor will not tell. 
That would be giving himself entirely away. 

Even Christian men and women who have inherited from 
a parent knowledge of some plant, and who use it rationally 
for its purely medicinal quality without any reference what- 
ever to spiritual influences, can barely be induced to tell me 
of it. The fee they obtain is part of their means of living. 
They make honest "medicine " in the circle of their acquaint- 
ances for certain sicknesses for which their drug happens to be 
fitted. Of a cure for any other sickness they know nothing, 
and must themselves go to some one else who happens to pos- 
sess the knowledge. 

Even by me my native friends — though with their personal 
respect or affection for me they would be willing to do 
much — do not like to be asked. They know that I, in ask- 
ing for information, expect to utilize it in letters or lectures 
or books. Their secret would not be safe even with me, 
and it may die with them. One of the noblest of my native 
female friends at Gabun, a Christian, well educated, with 
only a minimum of superstition remaining, and no belief at 
all in fetich, inherited from her mother much botanical and 
medicinal knowledge. I observe her decocting a medi- 
cine for a sick friend, and I ask her, "What medicine 
is that?" She turns away her usually frank eyes and simply 
says, "Sijavi" (leaves). "Yes, I see they are leaves. But 
I asked you what they are. Where do you get them?" 
With eyes still turned away, she only says, "Go-iga" (in 
the forest). "Exactly; of course it's a plant. But is it a 
tree or a vine or a shrub, or what?" And she looks at me 
steadily, and quietly says, " Mi amie " (I don't know). I 
have long ago learned that "mi amie," though only some- 
times true, is not always a lie. It is equivalent to our con- 
ventional "Not at home," or a polite version of, "Ask me 



WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — SORCERY 111 

no questions and I '11 tell you no lies." From my friend it 
is a kind notification that the conversation had better be 
changed. It having reached this acute stage, the pursuance 
of it would be worse than useless. I talk about something 
else, and immediately she resumes her wonted cordiality. 

Probably the particular herb selected by the fetich-man 
does possess some therapeutic value (for cures are effected) 
of which he does not himself know. He knows that that 
plant was said by his ancestors to be the proper one to use 
in case of a certain sickness, but knowledge of the raison 
d'user has been lost. 

The use of drugs in decoctions is less likely to be merely 
superstitious. The fresh leaves and barks are recognized. 
There is not likely to be a secret about them. Whatever 
of fetich is introduced in the case will be in the mode of 
administration. 

The next step, the admixture of the ingredients, is secret. 
They are ground or triturated, or reduced to ashes, and 
only the ash or charcoal of their wood is used. Among the 
common ingredients are colored earths, chalk, or potter's blue 
clays. Beyond the usual constituents constantly employed, 
there are other single ones, which vary according to the end 
to be obtained by the user of the fetich, — for one end, as else- 
where already mentioned, some small portion of an enemy's 
body ; for another, an ancestor's powdered brain ; for another, 
the liver or gall-bladder of an animal; for another, a finger 
of a dead first-born child ; for another, a certain fish ; and so 
on for a thousand possibilities. These ingredients are com- 
pounded in secret, and with public drumming, dancing, 
songs to the spirit, looking into limpid water or a mirror, 
and sometimes with the addition of jugglers' tricks, e. g., the 
eating of fire. 

The ingredients having been thus properly prepared, and 
the spirit, according to the magician's declaration, having 
associated itself lovingly with these mixed articles, they and 
it are put into the cavity of the selected horn or other hollow 
thing (a gourd, a nut-shell, and so forth). They are packed 



112 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

in firmly. A black resin is plastered over the opening. Per- 
haps also a twine is netted tightly on the top of it. A red 
paint — triturated red-wood mixed with palm or other oil — 
is daubed on it. While the resin is still soft, the red tail- 
feathers of the gray African parrot are stuck into it. This 
description is typical. It would be equally true if the chosen 
material object had no cavity, e. g., if it were a pebble or a 
piece of bark; in which case the sacred ingredients plas- 
tered on it would be held in situ by the twine netting. 
A hole is bored in the apex of the horn, and it is hung by a 
string from the neck, arm, waist, or ankle of the purchaser, 
or from his door, roof, or garden fence ; or from the prow of 
his canoe; or from any one of a hundred other points, ac- 
cording to the convenience of the owner or the object to be 
obtained by its use. 

Those objects may be, all of them, not only desirable, but 
commendable, even from a Christian point of view. In the 
exercise of the white art there is no ill-will to or malice 
against any other known person. The owner of the fetich 
amulet is only using, from his point of view, one of the 
known means of success in life, — somewhat as a business 
man in civilized lands uses his signs and tricks of trade to 
attract and influence customers. 

It is true that our native convert, in abjuring fetich and 
refraining from the white art, is at a disadvantage, humanly 
speaking, alongside of his heathen fellow, just as the honest 
grocer who does not adulterate his foods is somewhat at a 
disadvantage with the man who does. 

The heathen, armed with his fetich, feels strong. He 
believes in it; has faith that it will help him. He can see it 
and feel it. He goes on his errand inspired with confidence 
of success. Confidence is a large part of life's battle. If he 
should happen to fail, he excuses the failure by remembering 
that he had not obeyed all the minute "orunda" directions 
that the magician told him to follow. It is entirely in his 
power carefully to obey all directions next time; and then 
he cannot possibly fail! The Christian convert is weak in 



WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — SORCERY 113 

his faith. He would like to have something tangible. He 
is not sure that he will succeed on his errand. He goes at 
it somewhat half-hearted, and probably fails. His not very 
encouraging explanation is that God is trying his faith. 
That explanation is perhaps not the true one, but it is suffi- 
cient as his explanation. But it does not nerve him for the 
next effort; only the strong rise to overcoming faith. The 
weak ask the missionary whether they may not be allowed to 
carry a fetich only for "show." That "show" is for effect 
on a heathen competitor; for the moral effect on that com- 
petitor's mind, — that he should not think that the convert, 
in becoming a Christian, was at a disadvantage as to chances 
of success in the race with him. But that would be allow- 
ing even the "appearance of evil." 

It was actually true, in the early days of mission effort, that 
converts were oppressed by heathen under the idea that, as 
the gospel proclaimed by the missionary was a message of 
peace, all the " peace " was to be on the Christian's side, and 
that he dared not strike a blow even in self-defence. But we 
did not understand the angels' song of good-will as explained 
by the followers of George Fox, and by precept and example 
we allowed the use of force in the defence of right. 

As to the use of fetich by those who did not really believe 
in it, it was true that some Europeans, non-Christian men in 
their trade with the natives, seeing what a power the fetich 
was in the native thought, and knowing that it was exercised 
against themselves, deemed it a matter simply of sharp prac- 
tice to adopt a fetich themselves, and play the native at his 
own game. To my knowledge this was done by an English- 
man now dead. I was intimately acquainted with him ; and 
though his morals were objectionable and his religion agnos- 
ticism, I enjoyed his society. He was a gentleman in man- 
ners, intelligent, well-read, interested, in common with myself, 
in African philology and ethnology, and his river steamers 
often generously helped me in my itinerations. His trade 
interests were large ; he spoke the native language well, was 
practically acquainted with native customs and native mode 



114 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

of thought. He was a good hater and a firm friend, strict 
with subordinates to the point of severity, but on occasions 
free-handedly generous. Naturally such a character, while 
it made for him many friends, developed some enemies. A 
few hated him, most liked him, even while all feared him. 
To checkmate them on their own ground and to carry pres- 
tige in dealing with the heathen chiefs of wild tribes, he caused 
to be made for himself, and allowed it to be known in ad- 
vance that he carried, a powerful fetich. The effect was very 
decided in increasing his power, influence, and trade success, 
so successful that I am not sure but that he grew himself to 
have some faith in it, — an illustration of the oft-noted fact 
in moral philosophy that non-Christian credulity often leads 
men's beliefs further than does Christian faith. The after his- 
tory of my trader friend is a sad illustration of the wings that 
ill-gotten wealth develops. His fetich assisted in amassing a 
fortune several times over, but it did not retain it for him. 
He died in pitiful want. 

Practice of this white art holds all over South Africa and 
among all its tribes. " They believe in charms, fetiches, and 
witchcraft. The latter is the source of great dread to a Ma- 
shona, who fears that death or accident may overtake him 
through the instrumentality of some fellow-being who may 
perchance hold against him a grudge. For the purpose of 
avoiding these calamities, charms are worn about the person, 
usually around the neck. Divining bones or blocks of wood 
called ' akata ' are thrown by the witch-doctors to discover 
a witch or evil spirit, and they are also employed to ascertain 
the probable results of a journey, a hunt, or a battle, — in 
short, any and all of the events of life." 1 

" The tribes we have passed through seem to have one com- 
mon religion, if it can be called by that name. They say 
there is one great spirit, who rules over all the other spirits ; 
but they worship and sacrifice to the spirits of ancestors, so 
far as I can learn, and have a mass of fetich medicines and 
enchantments. The hunter takes one kind of charm with 

1 Brown, On the South African Frontier, p. 113. 



WITCHCRAFT — A WHITE ART — SORCERY 115 

him ; the warrior another. For divining they have a basket 
filled with bones, teeth, finger-nails, claws, seeds, stones, and 
such articles, which are rattled by the diviner till the spirit 
comes and speaks to him by the movement of these things. 
When the spirit is reluctant to be brought up, a solemn dirge 
is chanted by the people. All is attention while the diviner 
utters a string of short sentences in different tones, which are 
repeated after him by the audience." 1 

1 Arnot, Garenganze, p. 106. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FETICH — WITCHCRAFT — A BLACK ART — 
DEMONOLOGY 

THE distinction sought to be made by the half-civilized 
Negro between a white art and a black art, as a jus- 
tification of his practice of fetich enchantments, lies in the 
object to be obtained by their use. He vainly tries to find 
a parallel to them in Christian use of fire-arms, — proper for 
defence, improper for unprovoked assault. The black art he 
admits is wrong, its object being to kill or injure some one 
else ; the white he thinks allowable, because with it he acts 
simply on the defensive. He wishes to ward off a possible 
blow of an unseen foe aimed at himself. He professes his 
intention not to strike or take otherwise active measures 
to injure any known person. After every allowance made, 
the distinction between the arts as moral and immoral is not 
a clear one. They differ only in their degree of immorality. 
The means both use are immoral, not justified by the pos- 
sible goodness of the desired end, and not sanctified by the 
intention of the user. Both use fetiches. Fetich, if it has 
power at all, is not of God; if it is powerless, it is folly. 
Thus, in every and any case, it dishonors God. 

But whatever doubt there might have been as to the 
allowability of white art practice, there is no doubt as to 
the immorality of black art. It always contemplates a pos- 
sible taking of life. 

The term " witchcraft," which attaches itself to all fetich- 
ism, localizes itself in the black art practice, which is thus 
pre-eminently known as "witchcraft." Its practitioners are 
all "wizards" or " witches." The user of the white is not 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 117 

so designated. He or she does not deny the use; it is 
open and without any sense of criminality in the eyes of the 
community, however much he or she may endeavor to sup- 
press the fact from the knowledge of church officers. But 
a practitioner of the black art denies it and carries on his 
practice secretly. 

The above distinction is observed by travellers in other 
parts of Africa, as will be seen by the following quotations, 
which give also an interesting exposition of the ceremonies 
and practices of the black art in different regions : 

" Among the Matabele of South Africa," says Decle, " it is 
well understood that there were two kinds of witchcraft. One 
was practised by the witch-doctors and the king, such as, for 
instance, the ' making of medicine ' to bring on rain, or the 
ceremonies carried out by the witch-doctors to appease the 
spirits of ancestors. 1 The other witchcraft was supposed to 
consist of evil practices pursued to cause sickness or death. 

" According to native ideas, all over Africa, such a thing 
as death from natural causes does not exist. Whatever ill 
befalls a man or a family, it is always the result of witchcraft, 
and in every case the witch-doctors are consulted to find out 
who has been guilty of it. In some instances the witch- 
doctors declare that the evil has been caused by the angry 
spirits of ancestors ; in which case they have to be propi- 
tiated through the medium of the witch-doctors. In other 
cases they point out some one or several persons as having 
caused the injury by making charms; and whoever is so 
accused by the witchcraft doctor is immediately put to death, 
his wife and the whole of his family sharing his fate., To 
bewitch any one, according to Matabele belief, it is sufficient 
to spread medicine on his path or in his hut. There are also 
numerous other modes of working charms; for instance, if 
you want to cause an enemy to die, you make a clay figure 
that is supposed to represent him. With a needle you pierce 
the figure, and your enemy, the first time he comes in con- 
tact with a foe, will be speared. 

1 This would be what I have denominated the " white art." — R. H. N. 



118 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

"The liver and entrails of a crocodile are supposed to be 
most powerful charms, and whoever becomes possessed of 
them can cause the death of any man he pleases. For that 
reason, killing a crocodile is a very heinous crime. 1 

" While I was in Matabele-land, a crocodile was one day 
found speared on the bank of a river. The witch-doctors 
were consulted in order to find out who had been guilty of 
the deed; and six people were denounced as the offenders 
and put to death with their families. 

" Of witch-doctors there are two kinds. 2 The first deliver 
oracles by bone-throwing. They have three bones carved 
with different signs; these they throw up, and according to 
the position they assume when falling, and the side on which 
they fall, they make the prediction. The other kind deliver 
their oracles in a slow and very shrill chant. Both are 
supposed to be on speaking terms with spirits. They are in 
constant request, but are usually poorly paid. Their influ- 
ence, however, is tremendous ; and in Lo-Bengula's time 
their power was as great as, if not greater than, the king's. 
Lo-Bengula always kept two or three of them near him. 
Chief among their works was that of rain-making ; this was 
done with a charm made from the blood and gall of a black 
ox. No witch-doctors, however, could make rain except by 
the orders of the king. It was a risky trade ; for they were 
put to death if they failed in their endeavors to produce rain. 
Dreams are considered of deep significance by the witch- 
doctors. Madmen are supposed to be possessed of a spirit, 
and were formerly under the protection of the king. 

" One of the most remarkable ceremonies that used to be 
performed by the witch-doctors was that of ' smelling out ' the 
witches (wizards?). On the first moon of the second month 
of the year all the various regiments gathered at Buluwayo, 
and held a big dance in which the king took part ; usually, 
from 12,000 to 15,000 warriors assembled for this ceremony. 
After the dance the smelling of witches began. The various 

1 In that part of Africa. — R. H. N. 

2 Really, only a difference in administration. — R. H. N. 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 119 

regiments being formed in crescent shape, the king took his 
stand in front surrounded by the doctors, usually women. 
Then began a slow song accompanied by a dance ; they car- 
ried in their hand a small wand. Gradually the song and the 
dance became quicker ; they seemed to be possessed. They 
rushed madly about, passing in front of the soldiers, pretend- 
ing to smell them. All of a sudden they stopped in front of a 
man, and touching him with their wands, began howling like 
maniacs ; the man was immediately removed and put to death. 
In this way hundreds of people were killed every year during 
the big dance. No one, however high his position, was pro- 
tected against the mandate of the witch-doctors, usually the 
tools of the king, who found in this a way of getting rid of 
his enemies, or of doing away with those in high station whose 
loyalty he had reason to doubt. Other crimes are few except 
the ever-present witchcraft. To bewitch an enemy on the 
Tanganika plateau, you scatter a red powder round his hut 
and a white one near his door ; this never fails to kill. 

" Ordeal by muavi is, of course, nourishing ; with the en- 
lightened modification that, if the accused does not die, he can 
recover damages from the accuser. In the Mambwe district 
the muavi is made of a poisonous bean." x 

The same " medicines," the same dances, the same enchant- 
ments used in the black art, are used in the professedly 
innocent white art ; the chief difference being in the mission 
that the utilized spirit is entrusted to perform. 

Similarity in witchcraft practices is one of the several 
grounds held by ethnologists, as proving identity in origin of 
the African Negro and the Australian black. To quote from 
Dr. Carl Lumholtz's book, " Among Cannibals " : "In the 
various [Australian] tribes are so-called wizards, who pretend 
to communicate with the spirits of the dead and get information 
from them. They are able to produce sickness or death when- 
ever they please, and they can produce or stop rain and many 
other things. Hence these wizards are greatly feared. Atten- 
tion is called to the influence of this fear of witchcraft upon 

1 Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, pp. 152, 154, 294. 



120 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

the character and customs of the natives. It makes them 
bloodthirsty, and at the same time darkens and embitters 
their existence. An Australian native is unable to conceive 
death as natural except as the result of an accident or of old 
age ; while diseases and plagues are always ascribed to witch- 
craft and to hostile blacks. In order to practise his arts 
against any black man, the wizard must be in possession of 
some article that has belonged to him. On Herbert River the 
natives need only to know the name of the person in question, 
and for this reason they rarely use their proper names in 
addressing or speaking of each other, but simply their class 
names. I once met a black man who told me that he per- 
sonally had been the victim of strange wizards, and that ever 
since that time he had been a sufferer from headache. One 
afternoon many years ago, two wizards had captured and 
bound him ; they had taken out his entrails and put in grass 
instead, and had let him lie in this condition till sunrise. 
Then he suddenly recovered his senses and became tolerably 
well ; a result for which he was indebted to a wizard of his 
own tribe, who thus proved himself more powerful than the 
two strangers. The blacks call an operation of this kind kobi, 
and a man who is able to perform it, as a matter of course, is 
very much respected and feared." 

" The Ovimbundu race," says Arnot, " of Bihe and the coun- 
try to the west are most enterprising traders and imitators of 
the Portuguese. They seem, however, to retain tenaciously 
their superstitions and fetich worship. 

" In Chikula's yard there is a small roughly cut image, 
which I believe represents the spirit of a forefather of his. 
One day a man and woman came in and rushed up to this 
image, dancing, howling, and foaming at the mouth, apparently 
mad. A group gathered round, and declared that the spirit of 
Chikula's forefather had taken possession of this man and 
woman, and was about to speak through them. At last the 
' demon ' began to grunt and groan out to poor Chikula, who 
was down on his knees, that he must hold a hunt, the proceeds 
of which must be given to the people of the town ; must kill 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 121 

an ox, provide so many pots of beer, and proclaim a great 
feast and dance. Furthermore, all this was to be done 
quickly. The poor old man was thoroughly taken in, and in 
two days' time the hunt was organized. 

" Thus I find, as among the Barotse, that divining and 
prophesying, with other religious and superstitious means, are 
resorted to in order to secure private ends and to offer sacri- 
fice to the one common god, the belly. 

" At another time a man came to Senhor Porto's to buy an 
ox. He said that some time ago he had killed a relation by 
witchcraft to possess himself of some of his riches, and that 
now he must sacrifice an ox to the dead man's spirit, which 
was troubling him. This killing by witchcraft is a thing 
most sincerely believed in ; and on hearing this man's cold- 
blooded confession of what was at least the intent of his 
heart, it made me understand why the Barotse put such 
demons into the fire. 

"Among the Ovimbundu, old and renowned witches (wiz- 
ards ?) are thrown into some river, though almost every man 
will confess that he practises witchcraft to avenge himself of 
wrong done and to punish his enemies. One common process 
is to boil together certain fruits and roots, with which the 
wizard daubs his body, in order to enlist the aid of the de- 
mons ; and the decoction is then thrown in the direction of 
the victim, or laid in his path, that he may be brought under 
the bewitching spell." 1 

We quote again from Dr. J. L. Wilson, " Western Africa " : 
" Witchcraft, and the use of fetiches as a means of protec- 
tion against it, is carried to a greater extent here [Southern 
Guinea] than in Northern Guinea, owing, no doubt, to the 
greater imaginativeness of the people. The marvels performed 
by those who are supposed to possess this mysterious art tran- 
scend all the bounds of credulity. A man can turn himself 
into a leopard, and destroy the property and lives of his 
fellow-men. He can cause the clouds to pour out torrents 
of rain, or hold back at his pleasure. 

1 Arnot, Garenganze, p. 115. 



122 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

" A different article is used here for the detection of witch- 
craft from that used in Northern Guinea. The root of a 
small shrub, called akazya, is employed, and is more powerful 
than that used in the other section of the country. A person 
is seldom required to drink more than half a pint of the decoc- 
tion. If it acts freely as a diuretic, it is a mark of innocence ; 
but if as a narcotic, and produces dizziness and vertigo, it is 
a sure sign of guilt. Small sticks are laid down at the dis- 
tance of eighteen inches or two feet apart, and the suspected 
person, after he has swallowed the draught, is required ■ to 
walk over them. If he has no vertigo, he steps over them 
easily and naturally ; but, on the other hand, if his brain is 
affected, he imagines they rise up before him like great logs, 
and in his awkward effort to step over them, is apt to reel and 
fall to the ground. In some cases this draught is taken by 
proxy ; and if a man is found guilty, he is either put to death 
or heavily fined, and banished from the country. In many 
cases post-mortem examinations are made with the view of 
finding the actual witch; I have known the mouth of the 
aorta to be cut out of a corpse, and shown as unanswerable 
proof that the man had the actual power of witchcraft. 1 No 
one expects to resent the death of a relative under such cir- 
cumstances. He is supposed to have been killed by his awk- 
ward management of an instrument that was intended for the 
destruction of others ; and it is rather a cause of congratula- 
tion to the living that he is caught in a snare of his own," 
and that his own "witch" has killed him. 2 

Not every one who uses white art is able also to use the 
black. Any one believing in fetich can use white arts, and 
not subject himself to the charge of being a wizard. Those 
who desire to go beyond the arts of defence, and gratify their 
revenge or any other passion by killing or injuring some one 

1 And, similarly, I have known the fimbriated extremities of the fallopian 
tubes in a woman held up as a proof of her having been a witch. The ciliary 
movements of these fimbria? were regarded as the efforts of her "familiar" at a 
process of eating. The decision was that she had been " eaten " to death by her 
own offended familiar. — R. H. N. 

2 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 398. 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 123 

else, have generally to purchase the agency of a doctor or 
some one skilled in the black art. Should the means thus 
employed be efficient in causing a death (or seemingly so, by 
the coincidence of their use and the death itself) and the facts 
become known, both the doctor and the man who employed 
him would probably be put to death. Yet, inconsistently, 
the very men who would execute them have themselves used, 
or will some day use, these same black arts for the same 
murderous purpose, and the native doctors will continue 
in their risky business. 

And yet, again, inconsistently, every man and woman in 
the community dreads such a charge, and looks askance on 
those who are suspected of belonging to the Witchcraft Com- 
pany. For there is such a society, not distinctly organized. 
It has meetings at which they plot for the causing of sickness 
or even the taking of life. These meetings are secret ; pref- 
erably in a forest, or at least distant from a village. The 
hour is near midnight. An imitation of the hoot of an owl, 
which is their sacred bird, is their signal call. They profess 
to leave their corporeal body lying asleep in their huts, and 
claim that the part which joins in the meeting is their spirit- 
body, whose movements are not hindered by walls or other 
physical objects. They can pass with instant rapidity through 
the air, over the tree-tops. At their meetings they have 
visible, audible, and tangible communication with evil spirits. 
They partake of feasts ; the article eaten being the " heart- 
life " of some human being, who, in consequence of this loss 
of his "heart," becomes sick, and will die, unless it be re- 
stored. The early cock-crowing is a warning for them to dis- 
perse ; the advent of the morning star they fear, as it compels 
them to hasten back to their bodies. Should the sun rise upon 
them before they reach their corporeal "home," their plans 
would fail, and themselves would sicken. They dread cayenne 
pepper. Should its bruised leaves or pods have been rubbed 
over their body-home by any one during their absence, they 
would be unable to re-enter it, and would die or miserably 
waste away. 



124 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

The attitude of all missionaries toward executions on a 
charge of being a witch or a wizard has uniformly been 
distinctly in opposition to them. We characterize them as 
murder. The European governments which have taken pos- 
session of Africa also put down witchcraft, medicine-making, 
and execution of supposed witchcraft murderers with a strong 
hand. The natives submit under pressure of force, but un- 
willingly. Each man or woman is glad of the strong foreign 
power that protects himself or herself from being put to death 
on a witchcraft charge ; but they each complain that the 
government does not execute, nor will allow them to execute, 
others against whom they make the same charge. It is un- 
deniably true that were the European governments that have 
partitioned Africa to withdraw to-day, the witch-doctors, 
with poison ordeal and fetich killing and witchcraft execu- 
tion, would promptly re-establish themselves and soon would 
become rampant again. The Christian churches and com- 
munities already established would barely hold their own, 
and would not have an influence extensive enough to restrain 
the forces of evil. 

I quote from a recent issue of a Freetown, Sierra Leone, 
newspaper, edited by a Negro, an article written by a Negro on 
this subject: " The subject of * witchcraft' has been agitat- 
ing of late the minds of this community, and much sense and 
more nonsense has been heard from those who take upon 
themselves to elucidate the matter. It is a very difficult and 
delicate question to tackle at all times, especially when knowl- 
edge, which is always the foundation of eloquence, is absent. 
From the statement of Holy Scriptures we know that there is 
such a thing as witchcraft, and the theory is confirmed by the 
records of English history. It will be a most desirable thing 
if any person guilty of witchcraft could be convicted by means 
that would be convincing in the legal investigation of other 
crimes ; it will save the community from many heart-burnings 
and mistakes. 

" A writer in a local journal recently made the assertion that 
in any case of poisoning in the cities of Europe, steps are 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 125 

taken to trace the poison by eminent physicians and detec- 
tives employed to hunt up the accused, but in our opinion 
the cases are not analogous. In the case of suspected poison- 
ing post-mortem examinations by competent authorities will 
disclose the fact whether the deceased died of poisoning ; un- 
founded, and in some instances gratuitous, assertions are not 
without proofs allowed to cloud the life of individuals. A 
prima facie case once established, the suspect is pursued with 
the utmost vigor of the law. 

" In this colony [Sierra Leone] most deaths are attributed 
to the influence of witches, and accusation of witchcraft is at 
once made against individuals without attempt at obtaining 
evidence. 

u How can it be proved that there is a band of these wicked 
ones, so as to attach credence to the confession of a conscience- 
stricken member who implicates also a number of coadjutors ? 
The problem is an intricate one, and requires thoughtful 
investigation." 

The slaves exported from Africa to the British possessions 
in the West Indies brought with them some of the seeds of 
African plants, especially those they regarded as " medicinal," 
or they found among the fauna and flora of the tropical West 
Indies some of the same plants and animals held by them as 
sacred to fetich in their tropical Africa. The ceiba, or silk- 
cotton tree, at whose base I find in Africa so many votive 
offerings of fetich worship, they found flourishing on Jamaica. 
They had established on their plantations the fetich doctor, 
their dance, their charm, their lore, before they had learned 
English at all. And when the British missionaries came 
among them with school and church, while many of the con- 
verts were sincere, there were those of the doctor class who, 
like Simon Magus, entered into the church-fold for sake of 
whatever gain they could make by the white man's new in- 
fluence, the white man's Holy Spirit ! Outwardly everything 
was serene and Christian. Within was working an element 
of diabolism, fetichism, there known by the name of Obeah, 
under whose leaven some of the churches were wrecked. And 



126 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

the same diabolism, known as voodoo worship, in the Negro 
communities of the Southern United States has emasculated 
the spiritual life of many professed Christians. 

It must be admitted, as to this whole matter of witchcraft 
belief and witchcraft murder and witchcraft execution, how- 
ever wrong the Negro belief, his sense of justice is aggrieved 
by the attitude of the foreign missionary and the foreign 
government. Something should be allowed to that sense of 
justice. Both missionary and government err sometimes, in 
their judgment of individual or tribal crime and in their 
punishment of it, by arbitrarily following only civilized law 
and the civilized point of view ; ignoring or not giving proper 
weight, in the make up of their judgment, to the degree to 
which the fetich enters as a factor in native motives and acts, 
and the power with which it influences native thought. 

In Matabele-land, South Africa, after the defeat and death 
of the king Lo-Bengula, and the occupation of his country 
by Great Britain, there was an outbreak, the cause of which 
was not fully appreciated until it was traced to the witch- 
doctors, who seized the occasion of the ravages of the rinder- 
pest, which was at that time devastating the cattle of South 
Africa, to make use of their power. " Naturally they must 
have felt, more than anybody else, the occupation of Matabele- 
land by the whites, as it meant the disappearance of their 
former power. When the rinderpest broke out, they probably 
persuaded the natives, who understood nothing about an epi- 
demic and attributed whatever ill befalls them to witchcraft, 
that it was the spirit of Lo-Bengula, which was dissatisfied with 
them and which caused their cattle to die. To appease Lo- 
Bengula's spirit, it was necessary to fight the whites. They, 
the witch-doctors, would make medicine to turn the bullets 
of the white men into water, so that the Matabele could not 
be hurt by them." 

Similarly Great Britain with difficulty has suppressed 
several risings of the Ashantees, and the late so-called " Hut- 
Tax " rebellion in Sierra Leone. The actual force of the 

1 Brown, On the South African Frontier. 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 127 

natives, in organization, arms, and skill, was almost ridiculous 
in its inferiority as compared with the thoroughly armed and 
disciplined troops of the British Empire ; but the final 
result, though never doubtful, was attained with much loss of 
men and funds. The fetich doctor and fetich belief were a 
vis a tergo with the native horde. Its value as a factor in the 
contest had not been reckoned on by the foreigner. What- 
ever motives influenced the native in the contest, in patriotism, 
cupidity, revenge, braver}^, they were minor. The grand 
influence that nerved his arm and made him perfectly fearless 
in his assaults against weapons of precision, was his deep 
conviction, more complete than Christian faith, that he would 
win. Had not the fetich doctor told him so ? Though there 
had been some apparent failures, in his belief they were only 
apparent. The real failure was in his own self, his not having 
followed minutely all the fetich directions. Those directions 
followed rightly in the next battle, he could not fail. 

The faith of a Christian does not assure him, in any emer- 
gency of life, that he will be successful in his plan ; it only 
certifies him that, whatever be the result, success or failure, 
of any single act or series of acts in life's drama, his own will 
must be subordinated to God's, who, if not granting his 
specific wish to-day, will overrule everything in the final 
denouement for his best spiritual good. 

Similarly the heathen fetich, mixed with the fatalism of 
Islam, is an explanation of the splendid recklessness with 
which the followers of the Mahdi flung themselves against the 
sabres and maxims of General Kitchener's army at Omdurman. 

Faith in fetich is a power as long as its devotee believes in 
its infallibility. When that is gone, his flight or conquest 
is instant. Fetich power therefore cannot be invariably relied 
upon as a motive to action. It may sometimes be magnificent. 
Only Christian faith or civilized discipline can be sublime, as 
compared with it. 

But a fetich devotee who has lost his faith in his fetich 
could never have stood with Christian martyrs who knew 
perfectly well that within an hour they would be torn to 



128 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

pieces in the arena. Their sublime faith looked beyond that 
arena to the eternal promise. A fetich soldier who has lost 
his faith in his fetich could never have gone with those who 
stood head erect before certain death in the Alamo fort or 
who rode in the charge at Balaklava. Their elevated motives 
of patriotism, implicit soldierly obedience to order, and the 
sweet scent of human glory made them discount the value of 
their own blood. These were motives not only powerful in 
force, but great in character. The Negro's fetich faith is 
powerful, but never great. 

Something cognate to this in the comparison of the power 
and the greatness of a motive will explain the persistent fatu- 
ity of the Boer in protracting his contest with Great Britain. 
From the very first, whatever the world may have thought of 
essential right or justice in the case, the world knew that 
England would win. The Boer would have been wise to have 
accepted defeat earlier and made terms with a conqueror who 
generally has been magnanimous and rarely cruel, rather than 
invite, by guerilla warfare, measures severer, harsher, and 
possibly exterminative. The Boer is a Christian, but his 
faith was of the Mosaic kind that expected the God of battles 
to interfere visibly in his behalf. The president of the republic 
had preached that he would do so. The Boer looked on the 
president as a prophet, and believed him. But his faith was 
an unreasonable one ; it was fatuous. His bravery, patriot- 
ism, marksmanship, and endurance could not avail. These all 
tell well for a martyrdom, if martyrdom were desirable or 
necessary, but they did not tell well for assertion of success. 

France, overcome by Germany, still was brave and patriotic ; 
but she was wise in accepting the inevitable, — wiser than the 
Negro or the Boer. France believed in God; so did Germany. 
But the faith of neither was of the fetich kind. Nevertheless, 
the fetich faith is magnificent, even if it be fatuous. 

For the apparently cruel side of the black art, viz., the 
killing of those guilty of witchcraft, there is some allow- 
ance to be made. 

To the believer in fetich the killing is a judicial act. He 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 129 

does not call it a murder, but an execution; and he tries 
to justify it by an argument which even the missionary has 
to admit is correct if the Negro's premises in the argument 
are admitted. As we do not admit both of them, his argu- 
ment falls. But it is difficult to show him that his second 
premise is wrong, and he is unconvinced. 

I have several times been thoroughly worsted in my dis- 
cussion with native chiefs on this matter of witchcraft ex- 
ecutions. In the early years of my missionary life, while 
resident on Corisco Island, I followed the practice of my 
predecessor, the Rev. J. L. Mackey, in the effort to prevent 
such executions, which were then (about 1863) common. 
We directed the native Christians to notify us of any death, 
and we would at once go to the village and endeavor to fore- 
stall the almost invariable witchcraft investigation. The head- 
man, Kombenyamango, of an adjacent village, was a large, 
strong, influential, cruel man. There was so little about him 
to command my respect that I had shown him but slight def- 
erence. Having thus his amour propre wounded, he was 
unfortunately not on very good terms with me. His aged 
mother had been failing in health for a long time, and finally 
had died. Her position, as mother of a chief, had given her 
much respect in native eyes. The concourse of mourners 
gathered from a distance was large. Feeling for her death 
was deep; threats of vengeance for her taking off were 
loud. I was soon informed that one of her female slaves 
had been seized under pure suspicion because of her proxim- 
ity as the dead woman's servant. In her case as a means of 
finding whether or not she was guilty, there had been no 
ordeal test of drinking the mbunclu poison. (On the Upper 
Guinea Coast it is sassa-wood; at Calabar, the Calabar bean; 
at the equator, the akazya leaf.) Under torture, being 
beaten and lacerated by thorn bushes, she had confessed her- 
self guihiy, was in chains, and was soon to be executed. 

On such occasions, on arriving at the village, there was 
often an effort on the part of the chief to deceive the mis- 
sionary. The chief would either assert that he had had no 

9 



130 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

intention of making a witchcraft investigation, or would con- 
sent now, in deference to his white friend the missionary, to 
abandon his intention, and would forbid any execution. But 
it would be revealed to us afterwards that at that very mo- 
ment a victim was in chains in that very village, and had 
subsequently been secretly put to death. 

This day Kombenyamango, though receiving me with 
sufficient respect, was nonchalant. He did not lie. He 
promptly, in answer to my question, said, "Yes, I have a 
prisoner here, and I intend to put her to death." "Why?" 
"Because she has killed my mother! " I told him I did not 
believe his mother had died by unnatural means, and I 
preached to him the usual sermon on the Sixth Command- 
ment. I was at that time young in my knowledge of native 
thought and fetich belief. I can see now that to every sen- 
tence of my address he could have said Amen, in his believ- 
ing, as he did, that his mother had been murdered, and that 
this slave woman had broken the Sixth Commandment. But, 
after listening awhile, he became impatient, and said, " Look 
here! in your country, when a person kills your mother, don't 
you tie a rope about his neck and hang him up, and don't 
you say you are doing right in so doing ? " " Yes." " Well, 
that 's just what I am going to do to this woman, and I am 
right." "Yes, you would be right if she has killed your 
mother; but she has not. The bewitching with which you 
charge her is foolish." (As to the folly, I know now that 
that was a matter of opinion between him and me; and he 
had reason for his opinion. ) He replied, " But she has con- 
fessed that she is guilty." "Quite possibly; but still a lie 
on her part, for she would say anj^thing to obtain temporary 
relief from your torture." "But ask her yourself." "No 
use to do so in. your presence ; she is afraid of you, and she 
will not dare to speak to me or contradict you." "Well, 
then, I will bring her; and you take her off there among the 
plantains by yourself, and see what she will say." This 
sounded fair ; but even so, I had my doubts, for she did not 
know me. Perhaps they would lie to her, and tell her I was 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 131 

confederate with her master, and would order her not to alter 
her confession. And she, in her dazed condition, was really 
not responsible for anything she might say. She was brought 
from a hut. She was in chains, and yet with her limbs free 
to walk. There was no possibility of her escape ; nor of my 
being able to abduct her, had I been unwise enough to at- 
tempt it. I led her out of Kombenyamango's hearing, but 
still plainly in his sight, and kindly said to her, " Did you 
do this? " To my amazement, she said, "Yes." "But what 
did you do? If you say you killed her, how did you do it? " 
She described minutely how, being in attendance on the old 
woman, she was often vexed at her petulance, and had been 
beaten by her for small neglects ; how, in her anger, she had 
desired her mistress's death; had collected crumbs of her 
food, strands of her hair, and shreds of her clothing; how 
she had mixed these with other substances, and had sung 
enchantments with drum and dance, aided by others ; had tied 
all these things together on a stick which she had secretly 
buried at the threshold of the old woman's door, desiring and 
expecting that she should thereby die. By an unfortunate 
coincidence the old woman had died a month or two 
later; and the slave believed that what she had done had 
been efficient to accomplish the taking of life. 

Baffled, I returned to Kombenyamango, and admitted her 
confession. But I told him that, even so, both he and she 
were under a delusion; that what she had done had no effi- 
ciency for accomplishing a murder; that it was impossible. 
(Here again was a difference of opinion as to possibility; he 
believed his senses. In his life he had seen witchcraft mys- 
teries; I had not.) 

It was useless, even inconsistent, to plead for mercy; I 
retired heartsick. I was morally certain the old woman had 
died a natural death. Yet this poor slave woman had had 
murder in her heart, and had tried to make her murderous 
thought effective. She was, before God, guilty. She had 
confessed herself, before man's bar, guilty. (Well for the 
thousands of us who know ourselves guilty in thought, that 



132 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

we are not to be held by our fellow-sinners as guilty in act !) 
I knew that she was really innocent, but I could not prove 
it. She was taken to sea in a boat, and decapitated; her 
remains were thrown iuto the sea. 

On another occasion, a year later, also on Corisco Island, 
a certain heathen headman of a village, Osongo, had died. 
A female slave who was suspected had fled. Her flight 
was regarded as proof positive of her guilt. Our mission 
premises had always been accorded by the native chiefs 
the right of sanctuary. A refugee for any offence could 
not be seized on our premises till we saw just reason for 
" extraditing " him. This slave woman had hidden herself 
in our jungle-thicket adjoining a forest; just where I did 
not know. Two freemen — my personal employees, good 
Christians — knew, and secretly at night with my connivance 
fed her. My school-girls also learned of it. Such a secret is 
difficult to hide. One of the girls, a niece of Osongo, re- 
vealed it to another of my workmen, Matoku, a slave also 
of Osongo, and a professed Christian. He, with the traitor- 
ous cowardice that makes many slaves informers on each other 
as a means of enhancing their own safety with their masters, 
revealed it to Ajai, Osongo' s brother. Ajai, with a retinue 
of servants, came to visit me in my study. He, with a 
wily talk about the sadness of his brother's death, detained 
me, while the servants broke into the mission premises, 
and, led by Matoku, captured the woman, faint with her 
days and nights of exposure. I discharged Matoku from 
my employ, and dismissed the niece from school. But the 
heathen regarded these punishments as slight; they had 
obtained their object. My attempts to plead with Ajai for 
the woman's life were met with undisguised admission of 
his fixed purpose to kill her. With a family as prominent 
on the island and as wedded to heathenism as was Osongo's, 
and in face of the current that set against the woman, the 
influences I was able to employ, and which had at other- 
times resulted in saving some lives accused of witchcraft, 
proved ineffectual. I was privately told that she was to be 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOG Y 133 

put into a boat and carried out to sea so as to prevent any 
interference 1 might possibly attempt. With a spy-glass I 
saw a native boat shoot rapidly out from beyond a point of 
land half a mile distant. The rowers rested on their oars 
when they reached deep water. She was seized; her head 
held over the gunwale, her throat cut, and her lifeless body 
cast into the sea. 

She had a son, a stout lad. Ajai, fearing that he might 
live to avenge his mother's death, had ordered him also to 
be killed as an accomplice with her in the bewitching of 
Osongo. The tragedy that was being enacted on the beach 
behind the point of land from which had issued the boat I 
did not see ; but I was told that the lad was seized, his hands 
and limbs tied to a stake, where he was slowly burned to 
death. A crowd sat on the beach jeering him, and amused 
themselves by tying little packets of gunpowder to different 
parts of his body, enjoying the sight of his struggles as the 
packets exploded in succession. 

Undeniably there is much jugglery and conscious decep- 
tion on the part of the magic doctors. How much they really 
believe in what they say or do no one has been able to dis- 
cover; they assert that they are under supernatural influ- 
ences, and have power given from supernatural sources. 
Rarely are any of this priest class converted to Christianity. 
A few have professed conversion, and have made a general 
acknowledgment of sinfulness ; but they did not like to talk 
about their divinations; they called them "foolishness." 
But evidently there was something about those divinations 
of which they seemed ashamed and which they wished to 
forget. Only one have I met who would talk on the sub- 
ject, and she believed she had been under satanic influence, — 
not simply as all wicked thoughts are satanic in their char- 
acter and inspiration, but that she had actually been under 
satanic possession, and was given by the devil more than 
mere human power. Certainly, if there is in civilized jug- 
glery, fortune -telling, clairvoyance, divining, spirit-rappings, 
theosophy, et id omne genus, nothing more than sleight of 



134 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

hand, alert observation of facial expression, and mind-read- 
ing, the African conjurer almost equals the civilized profes- 
sional. The native magician does and tells some wonderful 
things. In one of my congregations an educated woman, a 
widow, who had only one child, a son grown to young 
manhood, had subsequently lived in succession with four 
other men, three of whom were white, who had either died 
or deserted her ; and she supposed herself past child-bearing. 
She contracted a secret marriage with a white gentleman, but 
of it positively nothing was known or even suspected by any 
one. She confessed to me that one day, being a visitor in a 
distant place where she was not known, she, out of mere 
curiosity, hired a magician to divine her future. He looked 
into his magic mirror, and, among many other things which 
he could shrewdly have guessed in a quick study of her 
character as revealed in her looks, manner, and language, 
surprised her by describing a white man (whom he had 
never seen) who, he asserted, was deeply attached to her, 
and by whom she would become the mother of two children. 
She suppressed her surprise, and told him that though mar- 
ried four times, she had borne no child in eighteen years. He 
nevertheless asserted, "I see them in your womb." 

Within five years from that time she did have two un- 
timely births by her white husband. She told me in her 
confession that he knew nothing of them, they being mis- 
carriages. She had suppressed from him the fact of her 
pregnancy. When subsequently she united with the church, 
she made these revelations only to me as her pastor, to save 
herself from public rebuke. 

At another time a woman in Gabun became very anxious 
about a brother of hers who was trading on the Ogowe River, 
at a place at least three hundred miles distant; no news had 
come of him. Evil news always flies fast and is always 
spread publicly. She went to a magician. Divining, he 
said, " Your brother is dead. " ; ' But where ? What ? When 
did he die ? " " Only recently. I see his body lying bleed- 
ing." And he described the wounds, the locality on the 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 135 

river, the time, and other details of a country where he 
had never been. Two months later news did come, and it 
agreed in time, place, and circumstances with the divination. 

Such things occur in civilized lands. They are accounted 
for without any reference to, or belief in, demoniac or even 
supernatural causes or influences. We call such recondite 
knowledge telepathy, and leave it for psychologists to study 
its character and application. It has no religious signifi- 
cance or use. The most devout Christian may believe in 
it or be subject to its operation. Other cases of telepathy 
in Africa I have been told of, that had no fetich nor any divi- 
nation of magic doctor connected with them ; but the natives 
attributed them to some unknown spirit-influence. 

An outcome of the witchcraft of fetichism, demonolatry, 
though not necessarily identical with demoniacal possession, 
intimately associates itself with it as a part of its develop- 
ment. For the Negro belief in such possession there is good 
basis. The Bible recognizes the possibility of human beings 
in their free agency making pacts with the devil, in virtue 
of which, he was allowed, under divine administration, to 
share with them some of his supernatural power as prince 
of the power of darkness, and god of this world. Such pacts 
were condemned by Jehovah as unholy. Those who made 
them were called witches and wizards; such transgressors 
were directed to be destroyed. "Thou shalt not suffer a 
witch to live " * (a command that does not necessarily 
prove that the professed diabolical compact was always a 
real one. The mere professing to have satanic companion- 
ship and aid was an offence heinous to Jehovah's theocratic 
government of his people.) 

But the witch of Enclor 2 certainly was a reality ; she did 
" bring up " real departed spirits; perhaps only on that one 
occasion, and then only by direct divine and not satanic 
power and will, and for a divine object. She herself seems to 
have been surprised 3 at the real success of divinations which 
formerly may have been, in her hands, only deceptions. 

1 Ex. xxii. 18. 2 1 Sam. xxvii. 11-15. 3 Verse 12. 



136 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

My native heathen chiefs have good precedent for their 
witchcraft executions. New England history cannot wipe 
out the fact of the Salem witchcraft trials. 

Demoniac possessions in supposed lunatics are possible; 
they were actual and numerous in Palestine during the min- 
istry of Christ. Satan was "loosed" with unusual power, 
that the Son of God in his contest with him could give to 
the world convincing proof of his divine origin and authority, 
even the devils being subject to him. If demoniacal pos- 
sessions are possible during a term of years, they are equally 
possible for a few hours ; they never were nor are made by 
Satan for a good purpose. God, in the days of Christ, for 
the special purpose of the time, overruled them for the de- 
fence of his kingdom ; since then, in the hearts of evil men, 
their advent is only for evil and by evil. 

If in Christian lands the enchantments of the hoodoo are 
only jugglery and nothing else, it may be that Satan's power 
is limited under the broad light of Christianity. But in 
heathen lands, where for ages Satan's power has not only 
been accepted but also sought, I am disposed to believe that 
some apparent cases of lunacy are real possessions by Satan, 
in which cases both the physical disease and its associated 
mental aberration are the effect of the possession. In lunacy 
pure and simple the mental aberration is the effect of disease 
alone, — some mental or physical injury. 

The possibility of a permanent possession by Satan being 
admitted, it is easily possible that the fetich doctors or priest- 
esses may be temporarily entered into by satanic power, and 
that some wonderful things they do and say while endowed 
with that power are used by the devil to blind men's minds 
against the truth. 

It may be, therefore, that the missionary in his contest 
with heathenism has literally to fight with the devil, with 
principalities and powers in high places, and needs weapons 
more subtle than Martin Luther's inkstand. If so, he 
puts his preaching and his work at a disadvantage in de- 
riding the witchcraft side of fetichism, revealed in black 



WITCHCRAFT — DEMONOLOGY 137 

art, as simply "folly," and reprehensible only as a supersti- 
tion. It is more than that; it is wickedness, — spiritual 
wickedness in high places. While it is true that it has much 
that is mere jugglery and charlatanism, it is quite possible 
that it may have something that is diabolically real. 

But all this does not fully justify my Negro chief in put- 
ting to death his slave, who may or may not have been more 
than self-deceived and deceiving, who may or may not have 
had a temporary satanic possession, who may or may not 
have been guilty of murder before the bar of God or man. 
That chief and all his assistants in the execution, and all 
other users of the black art, had, in the beginning of their 
fetich life, been users of only the defensive white art; had 
inevitably grown into the use of the offensive black art, 
and in all probability at some time or other had used divi- 
nations, with and by the aid of witchcraft doctors, for the 
destruction of others in a similar way and under the same 
motives as those admitted by my poor slave woman. 

My chief's argument syllogized would be: Whoever kills 
should be killed; this woman has killed; therefore she 
should be killed. His first premise stands; but neither he 
nor any of his people had a right to use it ; consistently, he 
and all his should themselves have been at the same bar with 
the woman; they either had done, or would some day be 
doing, just what they were charging her with doing. His 
second premise may or may not have been true; certainly, 
the only one who could know whether it was true was 
the accused herself, and she may have been self-deceived; 
and her confession should have no standing in court, having 
been forced under torture. I could not therefore admit his 
conclusion ; and I think that, had the Master stood visibly on 
Corisco Island that day, He would have said, "He that is 
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." 



CHAPTER X 

FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 

IN civilization, under governments other than autocratic, 
law being made and executed, at least professedly, with 
the consent of the governed, all enactments find not only 
their justification, but also the possibility of their enforce- 
ment, in their support by public opinion. It is the general 
consensus as to the need of an enactment regarding certain 
conditions affecting the lives or happiness or rights of the 
majority, that crystallizes opinions into a form of words, and 
gives authority for the enforcement of the decisions expressed 
by those words. 

This is also partly true even under governments more or 
less despotic, where the will of the ruler, not of the ruled, is 
made the basis of law. Few despots are so utterly tyranni- 
cal as deliberately to arouse opposition on the part of their 
subjects. Even a Nero, who would refuse a petition if it 
happened to run counter to his whim or caprice of the day, 
would grant that same petition if it happened to coincide 
with his own whim of another day. Even he thought it 
desirable to pander to the public taste for the butcheries of 
the amphitheatre, not simply because he himself enjoyed 
them. Though he could initiate no measure for the real 
good of Rome, he recognized the necessity of responding to 
the cry, "panem et circenses." 

In all governments fear is recognized as one of the grounds 
for the enforcement of law. In even the freest nations and 
under the highest form of civilization the public opinion that 
administers law makes its demand partly in the interest of 
essential right, partly with the instinct of self-preservation 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 139 

against the forces of evil, and partly for the punishment of 
wrong. Punishment in itself is not reformatory ; it is retrib- 
utive ; it is deterrent ; it plays upon fear. 

In the native African tribal forms of government, while it 
would not be true to say that there is no justice in the cus- 
toms they recognize, it is true that the only sentiment ap- 
pealed to, in the enforcement and even in the enactment of 
supposed needed measures, is that of fear. Their religion 
being one of fear, it is therefore appealed to to lend its sanc- 
tion and aid. 

" Fetiches are set up to punish offenders in certain cases 
where there is an intention to make a law specially binding; 
this refers more particularly to crimes which cannot always 
be detected. A fetich is inaugurated, for example, to detect 
and punish certain kinds of theft ; persons who are cognizant 
to such crimes, and who do not give information, are also 
liable to be punished by the fetich. The fetich is supposed 
to be able not only to detect all such transgressions, but has 
power, likewise, to punish the transgressor. How it exer- 
cises this knowledge, or by what means it brings sickness and 
death upon the offender, cannot, of course, be explained ; but, 
as it is believed in, it is the most effectual restraint that can 
possibly be imposed upon evil-disposed persons." 1 

Among the Negro tribes of the Bight of Benin and the 
Bantu of the region of Corisco Island and of the Ogowe 
River, in what is now the Kongo-Franoais, there was a 
power known variously as Egbo, Ukuku, and Yasi, which 
tribes, native chiefs, and headmen of villages invoked as a 
court of last appeal, for the passage of needed laws, or the 
adjudication of some quarrel which an ordinary family or 
village council was unable to settle. 

In those councils an offender could be proved guilty of a 
debt or theft, or other trespass, and when it was no longer 
possible for him by audacity or mendacity to persist in his 
assertion of innocence, he would yield to the decision of the 
great majority against him. But there was no central gov- 

1 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 275. 



140 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

eminent to enforce that decision or exact from him restitu- 
tion. The only authority the native chiefs possessed was 
based on respect due to age, parental position, or strength 
of personal character. If an offender chose to disregard all 
these considerations, an appeal was then made to his super- 
stitious fear. 

Egbo, Ukuku, Yasi, was a secret society composed only of 
men, boys being initiated into it about the age of puberty. 
Members were bound by a terrible oath and under pain of 
death to obey any law or command issued by the spirit under 
which the society professed to be organized. The actual, 
audible utterance of the command was by the voice of one 
of the members of the society chosen as priest for that pur- 
pose. This man, secreted in the forest, in a clump of bushes 
on the outskirts of the village, or in one of the rooms of the 
Council House, disguised his voice, speaking only gutturally. 
The whole proceeding was an immense fiction; they believed 
in spirits and in the power of fetich charms, and they made 
such charms part of the society's ceremonies; but, as to 
the decisions, all the members knew that the decision in any 
case was their own, not a spirit's. They knew that the voice 
speaking was that of their delegate, not of a spirit. Yet for 
any one of them, or for any woman, girl, or uninitiated boy, 
to assert as much would have been death. And those men 
who would not have submitted to the same decision if ar- 
rived at in open council of themselves as men, and known 
before the whole village to be speaking only as men, would 
instantly submit when once the case had been taken to 
Ukuku's Court. They carried out that fiction all their lives. 
Let a man order his wives and other slaves to clear the over- 
grown village paths, they might hesitate to obey by inventing 
some excuse that they were too much occupied with other 
work, or that they would do it only when other people who 
also used the same path should assist; or if under the 
sting of a kasa-nguvu (lash of hippopotamus hide or manatus 
skin) they started to do the work, they might do it only 
partly or very unsatisfactorily. But let the man call in 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 141 

the other men of the village and summon a meeting of 
the society, the recalcitrants would submit instantly, and 
in terror of Ukuku's voice; much as they might possibly 
have suspected it was a human voice, they would not dare 
whisper the suspicion. They helped to carry on a gigantic lie. 
They taught their little children, both girls and boys, that 
the voice belonged to a spirit which ate people who dis- 
obeyed him. When the society walked in procession to or 
from their appointed rendezvous, they were preceded by run- 
ners who, with a well-recognized cry and with kasa-nguvu 
in hand, warned all on the path of the coming of the spirit. 
Women and children hastened to get out of the way; or, if 
unable to hide in time, they averted their faces. The 
penalty when a woman even saw the procession was a severe 
beating; that, however, might be commuted to a fine. 

About thirty-nine years ago, on the island of Corisco, the 
then headquarters of the Corisco Mission, there was a long- 
standing feud between the Benga tribe, inhabiting that island, 
and the Kombe tribe, dwelling at the mouth of the Eyo River, 
of the Benita country, fifty miles to the north. Benita was 
also a part of the mission field. The quarrel between the 
two tribes greatly obstructed our mission work. Missionaries 
were entirely safe in travel between the two places, respect 
being given them as foreigners, and their presence in a boat 
protected their crews ; but it was often difficult to obtain a 
crew willing to go on the journey without the presence of 
a white man. The difficulties caused by the feud fell heavily 
also on the Benga people themselves. The island itself had 
no products for trade; ivory, dye-woods, and rubber came 
from the Benita mainland. Many Kombe women had mar- 
ried Benga men, and needed frequently to revisit their own 
country. Finally, to end the feud, it was agreed that the 
Kombe Ukuku Society, whose power was held in even greater 
fear than that of Benga, should come to Corisco and settle 
the affair. 

It was a day of terror at the Girls' Boarding School, of 
which I was then superintendent. As the long, blood- 



142 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

curdling yell of the forerunners on the public path, that ran 
only one hundred feet from the school dwelling, announced 
the approach of the procession, the girls fled, affrighted, to 
the darkness of the attic of the house. After the proces- 
sion had passed, they ran away secretly in byways to their 
own villages, feeling safer in the darkness of their 
mother's huts than in the mission-house; for it had been 
reported that Ukuku, besides settling the tribal feud, in- 
tended to attack the mission work that had been success- 
fully making converts among the Kombe, because any native 
who became a Christian immediately withdrew from member- 
ship in the society. It had therefore begun to feel a little 
anxious about its safety. I stood at my door and saw the 
procession pass ; they saw me, but, because of my sex, they 
did not show any displeasure. They were painted with 
white and other colored chalks that gave a horrible expres- 
sion to their faces ; their look was defiant, and a hoarse, mut- 
tered chant had, even on myself, a depressing effect. I could 
well imagine that to a superstitious native mind the tout 
ensemble would be terrifying. 

The procession on its way chose to pass over a road that 
had by use become somewhat public, but which was owned 
by the mission; it was only fifty feet past the front door 
of the house of the senior missionary, the Rev. James L. 
Mackey. Mrs. Mackey was standing at the door of the 
house; not being a Benga woman, she saw no reason why 
she should retire before Ukuku, and stood her ground. 
Ukuku went to their rendezvous in a rage, and the Kombe 
portion demanded the life of the woman who not only had 
not hidden her face in their presence, but had dared persist- 
ently to look upon them. This demand was modified by the 
Benga portion to a fine ; its alternative, whipping, not even 
they daring to suggest for a white lady. This demand for 
a fine was actually brought to Mr. Mackey, who gave a dig- 
nified reply, pointing out that, as foreigners, white people 
were not subject to Ukuku; that Ukuku had trespassed 
on mission private property, and was itself responsible for 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 143 

being seen; that, as a Christian, in no case could he rec- 
ognize the authority of Ukuku to order or fine him. In 
reply, Ukuku made the point that it was the government 
of the country, and that even foreigners were bound to obey 
law. (Corisco actually belonged to Spain, but Spain in no 
way exercised any visible authority over it.) 

They admitted their trespass on private property, but still 
demanded the fine. Mr. Mackey made no further reply; 
and of course, as a matter of conscience, refused to pay the 
fine. But it transpired afterwards that native friends, fear- 
ful lest matters should come to an ugly pass through his 
refusal, privately paid the fine themselves. The missionary, 
unaware of this, thought he had triumphed; really Ukuku 
had, but not unqualifiedly, for it was a shock to its power 
that it should have been disputed at all, even by a white 
man. 

About the same time a young slave man who was begin- 
ning to attend church with desire to become a Christian, was 
sitting in a village where was being held a meeting of the 
local Ukuku Society. The object of the meeting was to 
alarm and drive back to a more constant performance of 
fetich observances some of the villages on which heathenism 
was beginning to lose its hold. In the course of his oracular 
deliverances the Ukuku priest mentioned by name this young 
man. In his fresh zeal as a convert he made a protest ; per- 
haps duty did not call for even that just at the time, but he 
even went beyond. As he was able to recognize the voice, 
though disguised, and knew who its owner was, he made a 
fatal mistake in saying, " You, such-a-one, I know who you 
are; you are only a man; why are you troubling me? " He 
was promptly dragged to the seaside and decapitated. 

While converts felt the propriety of abandoning their 
membership in the society and any participation in its cere- 
monies, the mission had not required of them nor deemed it 
desirable that they should make a revelation of its secrets. 
But it had occurred in the early history of the mission that 
one young man, Ibia, a freeman, member of a prominent 



144 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

family, had felt that in breaking away from heathenism and 
becoming a Christian he should cast off the very semblance 
of airy connection with evil or even tacit endorsement of it. 
He knew the society was based on a great falsehood. As 
a lad he had believed Ukuku was a spirit; on his initiation 
he had found that this was not so ; but loyal to his heathen- 
ism and to his oath, he had assented to the lie and had as- 
sisted in propagating it. He was known for the fearlessness 
of his convictions, and in his conversion he to a rare degree 
emerged from all superstitious beliefs. Few emerge so ut- 
terly as he. He therefore publicly began to reveal the cere- 
monies practised in the Ukuku meetings. At once his life 
was in danger. The two pioneer missionaries, Rev. Messrs. 
Mackey and Clemens, were men of exceptional strength of 
character and wise judgment, and had obtained a very strong 
hold on the respect and affection even of the heathen. Their 
influence, united with a small party of Ibia's own family and 
a few of the more civilized chiefs, was able to save his life, 
he being guarded in the mission-house until the fierceness of 
heathen rage should abate. But, though his enemies pres- 
ently ceased from open efforts to kill him by force, they 
proclaimed that they would kill him by means of the very 
witchcraft power he was despising. They said they would 
concoct fetich charms which would destroy the life of his 
child, and that they would curse the ground on which he 
trod so that it should sicken his feet. Not long afterwards 
his infant child did die, and one of his feet for more than a 
year had a painful ulcer. The coincidence was startling, and 
somewhat triumphant for the heathen; but infant mortality 
is large even among natives, and phagedenic ulcers of the leg 
are very common. Ibia recognized his afflictions as a trial 
of his faith permitted by God. He came out of his fiery trial 
strong, and his life since has been that of a reformer, uncom- 
promising with any evil, earning from his own people their 
ill-will by his scathing denunciations of anything that savored 
of superstition. He became the Rev. Ibia j'Ikenge, mem- 
ber of Corisco Presbytery and pastor of the Corisco church ; 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 145 

and Ukuku has long since ceased to exist as a power on the 
island. 

Like all government intended for the benefit and protec- 
tion of the governed, Ukuku, when it happened to throw its 
power on the side of right, was occasionally an apparent bless- 
ing. It could end tribal quarrels and proclaim and enforce 
peace where no individual chief or king would have been able 
to accomplish the same result. In this connection I quote 
from an editorial in a Sierra Leone newspaper: 

" Much of the ideas of our western civilization as to native 
African institutions have been crude and uninformed, based 
on misconception and a predisposition to consider such insti- 
tutions as an outcome of barbarism and savagery, to be treated 
with unmitigated contempt. But as the light of modern re- 
searches is reflected on the question by sympathetic students 
who have brought an unprejudiced mind to bear on the sub- 
ject, if haply they might discover the hidden truths under- 
lying the fabric which age, custom, and intellect have combined 
to construct into a national system, it is becoming more and 
more apparent to those who are interested in the material 
progress of Africa and the Africans and who are believers 
in the fact that native races have a civilization of their own 
capable of development and expansion on right lines, that 
the study of such questions should be intelligently and scien- 
tifically pursued, and with a purpose to help those concerned 
in their onward progress towards the attainment of moral, 
social, and intellectual liberty. 

"That [some] native [governmental] institutions have 
wielded, and are wielding, a power for good in the several 
communities belonging to each distinctive tribe, is a fact that 
cannot be disputed or contested, in the past as well as in the 
present. The Aro of the Yorubas [in the Niger Delta], the 
Porroh of the Mendis [of Sierra Leone], and the Bondo of 
the mixed mass who inhabit Sherbro-land, have and exer- 
cise judicial functions exemplary and disciplinary in their 
effects. By their means law and order are observed to such 
an extent that many of the unrestrained and rowdy outbursts 

10 



146 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

cowardly indulged in by so-called civilized communities and 
people are practically unknown. 

" These institutions are connected with and govern the agen- 
cies that work in the sociology of all communities, such as the 
marriage laws ; the relation of children to parents and of sex 
to sex ; social laws ; the position of eldership and the deference 
to be paid to age and worth ; native herbs and medicines, and 
the duties of the native doctor to the other members of 
the community." 

On one occasion in 1861 the Rev. William Clemens took a 
young Benga man from Corisco Island to locate him as evan- 
gelist in the bounds of a mainland heathen tribe where there 
was some doubt as to the young man's safety. The village 
chief, though a heathen and entirely uninterested in the reli- 
gious aspect of the case, was alive to the fact that the presence 
among his people of this young protege of the white man 
would increase his tribal importance, and that his people 
themselves would derive a pecuniary benefit from even the 
small amount of money that would be spent on the evangelist's 
food. He therefore voluntarily offered to call an Ukuku 
meeting and have a law enacted that no one should machinate 
against the Benga's life by fetiches of any kind. Mr. Clemens 
declined the offer. If he accepted Ukuku's authority to de- 
fend him, he might some day be called on to submit to the 
same power as an authority to punish him. He wisely avoided 
an entangling alliance. He told the chief that he preferred to 
entrust his protege' to his care and to rely on his promise 
rather than on Ukuku's. This compliment put the chief on 
his mettle ; the evangelist's protection became to him a case 
of noblesse oblige. 

The power of this society was often used as a boycott to 
compel white traders as to the prices of their goods, using in- 
timidation and violence after the manner of trades unions in 
civilized countries. This was true all along the West Coast 
of Africa wherever no white government had been established. 
It ceased at Libreville, in the Gabun country, after the estab- 
lishment of a French colony in 1843, with a white governor, a 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 147 

squad of soldiers, police, and a gunboat. Also at other trade 
centres such as Libreville, Ukuku early lost its position, for 
the population was too heterogeneous and there were too many 
diverse interests. At the large trading-houses were gathered 
native clerks and a staff of servants as cooks, personal attend- 
ants, boatmen, etc., representing a score of tribes from distant 
parts of the coast. Whatever obedience they gave to similar 
societies in their tribes, they did not feel bound by the local 
one, to which they were strangers ; and they were disposed, 
under a community of trade interests with their employers, to 
disregard the society of the local tribe, to many of whom they 
felt themselves socially superior. 

But at Batanga, in what is now the Kamerun colony of the 
German Government, the Ukuku Society forty years ago car- 
ried itself with a high hand. Batanga was not then claimed 
by any European nation, and the number of white men were 
few. Its trade in ivory was one of the richest on the West 
Coast of Africa, — so rich that the Batanga people became arro- 
gant. Some of them disdained to make plantations of native 
food supply, and lived almost entirely on foreign imported pro- 
visions, taking in exchange for their abundant ivory barrels 
of beef, bags of rice, and boxes of ship's biscuit. It was 
a case of demand and supply. The native got what he wanted 
in goods, and the white man obtained the precious ivory. 
But in the competitions of trade, fluctuations in the market, 
and the growing demand of the natives for a higher price, 
there came days when some white man, seeing the margin of 
his per cent of gain becoming too narrow, refused the current 
price. Doubtless often the white men were arbitrary, not only 
in prices but also in other matters. Doubtless, also, the natives 
were often exorbitant in their demands. When the differences 
became extreme, the native chiefs called in the aid of Ukuku. 
The phrase was to " put Ukuku " on the white man's house. 
The trader was boycotted. He stood as under a major excom- 
munication. No one should buy from, or sell to him. No 
one should work for him. He was deserted by cook, steward, 
washerman, and all other personal attendants. Sentinels stood 



148 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

on guard to prevent food being brought to him, or even to pre- 
vent his lighting a fire in his own kitchen if he should at- 
tempt to cook for himself. 

The white trader generally succeeded in breaking down 
the interdict put upon him by these means, viz. (1) He 
had in his house a supply of canned goods and ship's biscuit, 
with which he would not starve. (2) His Negro mistress 
almost always remained faithfully with him, secretly assisting 
him, divulging to him the plans of her own people, — as in the 
history of Cortes and the conquest of Mexico. She dared to 
do this, being tacitly upheld by her own family. The position 
of " wife " to a white man was considered by the natives 
an honorable one, and was sought by parents for their 
daughters. It was an exceptional source of wealth for them. 
(3) If other means failed, the trader could almost always 
break the boycott by bribes of rum. Time was money to him ; 
often, indeed, in a malarial country it was life to him. 
Though time was worth nothing to the natives, the rum they 
had learned to love became a necessity to them. In cutting 
the white man from their ivory, they had cut themselves from 
the white man's rum. A judicious expenditure of demijohns 
in proper quarters generally enabled Ukuku to revoke his 
own law. Then, perhaps, the white man would make some 
slight concession. 

I had an experience of this kind in the Benita country in 
1868. I had been there several years. There was growth in 
the desire for the good tilings that money can buy, but wages 
and prices had remained unchanged. I was obtaining all I 
needed of both labor and food without difficulty. Had I had 
any difficulty, I should naturally have offered more induce- 
ment. I was not aware that there was any discontent. None 
of my employees had asked for a rise, nor had people, in sell- 
ing their produce, complained of the price I gave. 

Suddenly, one morning, a company of about twenty men, 
led by an ambitious heathen whose manner had always been 
dictatorial to me and to whom I had shown no favor, filed 
into the public meeting-room of our mission-house. I knew 



FETICIIISM — A GOVERNMENT 149 

them all ; none were in my employ, nor were any of them 
Christians. As if they thought it was hopeless to attempt to 
obtain anything from me by petition or respectful request, 
they seemed to have decided to stake all on a demand and 
threat. They suddenly and harshly began, " We 've come to 
order you to change prices." Naturally I felt nettled and re- 
plied that I saw no reason why I should take orders from 
them. They rose in a rage and said, " Then we '11 put Ukuku 
on you — (1) no one shall work for you ; (2) no one shall sell 
you food or drink; (3) you shall not go yourself to your 
spring ; " and with a savage yell they left the house. In- 
stantly a great terror fell on the native members of my house- 
hold. Those who were heathen dropped work and went to their 
villages. Those who were Christians came to me distressed, 
saying that they desired to obey me, but they feared the inter- 
dict. I relieved the situation for them by excusing them from 
further work "till I should call them," and refrained from 
ringing the call-bell at the usual work hour. 

With me were Mrs. Nassau, our child's nurse, my sister 
Miss I. A. Nassau, and two native girls, members of another 
tribe. Nurse was a foreigner, a Christian Liberian woman, 
who was not amenable to the interdict. Some of my Chris- 
tian employees, though not working, remained on the prem- 
ises. A few visitors came in the afternoon, — some, as sincere 
friends, to sympathize ; some in curiosity, to see how we were 
feeling ; and some as spies, to see what we were doing. The 
interdict, except as an expression of ill-will and a possible 
check to my mission work, did not trouble me. As to food, 
I had an ample supply of canned provisions, sufficient for a 
long siege. In refusing to sell me their native products, 
the people would miss more than I should. As to work, the 
cleaning of the premises was not pressing and could safely be 
neglected. As to drinking-water, enough could be caught 
from the roof in the almost daily rains. Food and labor were 
their own, to refuse if they chose. But the spring was on 
my premises and belonged to me. To refrain from going to 
it might be deemed cowardice ; at least it would be obeying 



150 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

an order of what Ukuku claimed was a spirit. An order from 
men I might submit to under compulsion ; to submit to this 
spirit went against my conscience. After prayer and consid- 
eration overnight, Mrs. Nassau fully agreed with me that it 
was right I should make a demonstration at the spring. In 
parting with her next morning, as I took up a bucket to go 
to the spring, she knew I might not return alive. A sandy 
path led through low bushes to the spring, several hundred 
yards distant. I saw no one on the way nor at the spring. I 
filled the bucket and was turning homeward, when a spy, 
armed with a spear, jumped out of his ambush and ordered 
me to leave the water. As I did not do so, but started to 
walk over the path, he stabbed at my back. I thrust the 
spear aside and faced him, but walking backward all the 
time kept my eye steadily on his. He feared my eye (most 
native Africans cannot stand a white man's fixed look) and 
did not attempt to stab me in front, but tried to spill the 
water in the bucket and stab me from behind. But the 
bucket and its contents I guarded, as he struck at it from 
right to left, by rapidly changing it from left to right with 
one hand and warding off the spear with the other. Still walk- 
ing backward, and keeping my eye on him, the bucket and I 
reached the house in safety. 

He hastened to the native villages, whence soon I heard a 
great outcry. A company of Christian natives came in haste, 
saying that Ukuku was on his way to assault the house, and 
that they and other young men, even some who were not 
Christians, would fight for me against their heathen parents 
if I could provide them powder. I supplied them. Then 
they bade me hasten and fasten all doors and windows. 

The mission dwelling consisted of two houses joined by 
a covered veranda, — one, a one-storied bamboo; the other 
framed of boards, one and a half story. Mrs. Nassau was 
in the latter, closing it. Before I had finished closing the 
former, the enemies came, and I was alone in the bamboo 
house. Shots rattled against the walls. Through the chinks 
I could see the young men were guarding all entrances and 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 151 

firing. I think that in this difficult situation, defending me 
against their own people, they purposely fired wide, for no 
one was even wounded. But their armed stand checked 
the enemies, who then soon retired. In after years these 
were ashamed of their assault, and tried to minimize it, when 
it was related to new missionaries, by representing that they 
did not intend to kill me. I accepted that as a kindly after- 
thought. Certainly the spy at the spring intended, and 
tried hard, to kill me. Certainly, also, their gunshots left 
their marks on the walls of the bamboo house, and, for aught 
they knew, had penetrated the thin walls and might have 
struck me. 

That their interdict had been successfully broken, and that, 
too, by the aid of their own sons, was a great blow to the 
Ukuku party. It was the beginning of the end of its power. 
Four years later, while I was absent on my furlough, the 
number of the church-members having largely increased, two 
young men, themselves of strong character and imbued with 
the courage of my able successor at Benita, Rev. Samuel 
Howell Murphy, deliberately determined to " reveal Ukuku." 
They walked through a village street openly shouting to the 
women that "Ukuku is only a man." At once their lives 
were demanded ; but so many of their companions stood up 
for them, and said to their fathers, " The day you kill those 
two you will have to kill all of us, for we all say also that 
Ukuku is only a person," that Ukuku was amazed. Nev- 
ertheless the society met. But when the members looked in 
each other's faces, each one knew that in voting to put to death 
the other men's sons, he was voting also against his own son. 
The society could have dared to kill one or two, but to kill 
a score ! They shrank from it. Every one thought of his own 
son thus involved, and the great lie was exposed and died. 

In 1879, on the Ogowe. River, at my interior station, 
Kangwe, near the town of Lambarene, one hundred and 
thirty miles up the course of the river, I had a similar experi- 
ence with that same society, known there in the Galwa tribe 
by the name of Yasi. 



152 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

In my new work on the Ogowe, I pursued toward that 
society the same course I had followed with Ukuku at Benita. 
I preached simply the gospel of Christ ; but it is true that 
the gospel touches mankind in all their human relations. I 
therefore was not silent about such sins as slavery and 
polygamy, any more than I would be silent about the sins of 
drunkenness or theft. All these were practices the evil of 
which in serious moments most natives would admit, however 
much they chose still to persist in them. But witchcraft was 
their religion ; they believed in it. To attack it openly would 
only offend, and I would lose the personal influence which 
I was able to exercise in quiet, private discussions. Yasi, 
though a falsehood, was their government. To attack it 
would have simply emptied my church of every heathen 
auditor, and would have debarred any women or children 
from receiving further instruction. I could afford to bide 
my time, for the entering wedge of Christian principles 
to overthrow what I could never have removed by direct 
onslaught. In conversations with my heathen friends, the 
native chiefs, in their own houses, when no women or children 
happened to be present, I would expostulate with them against 
such a mode of government. I told them I would render 
them respect and even obedience, if as persons they should 
enact laws affecting me as a person, but that I could give 
neither respect nor obedience to what they knew I knew was 
a lie. They looked troubled, and replied, " Yes, that 's so, 
but don't tell it to the women." And I did not. Neverthe- 
less, in my untrammelled conversations in the mission-house 
with my own Christian male employees, I was not careful 
to be silent if our school-boys happened to be present ; and 
these same employees in their own dormitories deliberately 
and intentionally told the boys of the falsities of their tribal 
superstitions. They were right. This was Christian prin- 
ciple, working as I desired it should. Inevitably there grew 
up a generation of lads who began to deride Yasi, and said 
that they would never join the society. 

There came one day a delegation of them led by two Chris- 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 153 

tian young men, Mamba and Nguva, asking my permission to 
play a mock Yasi meeting. I asked them, " Will you dare to 
play that same play in your own villages ? " " No, we would 
be afraid." i4 Then don't do here what you are unable to carry 
out elsewhere. I cannot defend you in your own villages. 
You are safe here ; wait until you are stronger and more 
numerous. Just now your play will create confusion." 
Nevertheless they did play, with the result which I had fore- 
told. The chiefs were deeply enraged. They " put Yasi " 
on my house, which meant that I was not to be visited nor 
sold any food. There was a report, also, that the mission 
premises were to be assaulted with guns. The loss of food 
supply was a serious difficulty. I did not need any for myself 
and sister, nor for the two young missionaries, both of them 
laymen who were visiting me from a sea-coast station, and 
who could not understand the case in all its aspects, for they 
had never met with the society's power ; it did not exist at 
their station, having been broken before they came to Africa. 
But how was I to feed thirty hungry school-boys ? I had 
to send most of them away to their distant homes down 
the river; and my canoes returned with a temporary food 
supply that they had been able to buy at places on the route 
where news of the interdict had not as yet been officially 
carried. 

The dozen young men who remained with me I armed with 
guns obtained from a neighboring trading-house, and I posted 
sentinels every night to guard against sudden assault. I 
went to the native villages and met a council of several chiefs. 
They seemed desirous to keep on friendly terms with myself, 
but they were angry at their own children. They took me to 
task for my warlike preparations. These I told them were 
for defence, that I would use the guns only when they com- 
pelled me to do so. Then they complained that I had taught 
their children to disobey them. I denied, stating that one of 
the greatest of God's commands which I had taught them 
was to honor their parents. But I added that the Father in 
Heaven claimed priority even to an earthly parent ; and how 



154 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

could children really honor parents who were persistently 
deceiving them about Yasi, who they knew was only a person ? 
They winced, and looking towards some women who were 
passing by, said, " Don't speak so loud, the women will hear 
you." They made another complaint, viz., that I was trying 
to change their customs ; they bade me leave them alone 
in their customs ; I could keep my white customs, and they 
would keep theirs. I frankly told them that I would be 
pleased to see some of their customs which were evil changed, 
but that neither I nor any other missionary could compel them 
to change ; that, nevertheless, these customs would be changed 
in their and my own lifetime. They were terribly aroused, 
and swore, " Never ! never ! You can't change them." " No, 
not I ; but they will be changed." " Never ! Who can or 
who will do it?" "Your own sons." "Then we will kill 
our own sons." 

They seemed to transfer their anger against me to their 
own children. The interdict against my house was not for- 
mally removed, but it was not rigidly enforced. I no longer 
felt it necessary to post sentinels at night, and secretly, 
at night, a sister of one of these very chiefs sold me food for 
my family. But the heathen rage spread down the river to 
the villages of the disbanded school children and native 
Christians. One of these, Nguva, was seized, chained, and 
offered to Yasi " to be eaten." He was rescued by a daring 
expedition made by my two lay missionary visitors, who went 
in my six-oared gig with my twelve enthusiastic young native 
Christian workmen. They went fifteen miles down river, 
were secretly directed by one of the little school-boys to the 
village where Nguva was chained in stocks, assaulted the 
village at the mid-afternoon hour, when almost all the men 
were away, cut Nguva from the stocks, and brought him in 
triumph to my house. But in their retreat up the river they 
had for a distance of five miles been subjected to a fusillade 
of native guns from both sides of the river. The river was 
wide, and they kept in mid-stream, and no one was injured. 
But the consequences of that resort to arms made me much 



FETICHISM — A GOVERNMENT 155 

trouble after my visitors had safely returned to their seaside 
station. According to native law, I, and not my guests, was 
held as the responsible party, and the affair was not satisfac- 
torily settled until some months afterward. 

My prophecy came true; less than ten years later little 
children were playing Yasi as amusement in the village 
streets. Nguva became an elder in the church. He is now 
dead. His chain is a trophy in the Foreign Board's Museum, 
156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

M&mba still lives, working faithfully as a church elder 
and evangelist. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE FETICH — ITS RELATION TO THE FAMILY 

IN most tribes of the Bantu the unit in the constitution of 
the community is the family, not the individual. How- 
ever successful a man may be in trade, hunting, or any other 
means of gaining wealth, he cannot, even if he would, keep 
it all to himself. He must share with the family, whose 
indolent members thus are supported by the more energetic 
or industrious. I often urged my civilized employees not to 
spend so promptly, almost on pay-day itself, their wages in 
the purchase of things they really did not need. I repre- 
sented that they should lay by "for a rainy day." But they 
said that if it was known that they had money laid up, their 
relatives would give them no peace until they had com- 
pelled them to draw it and divide it with them. They all 
yielded to this, — the strong, the intelligent, the diligent, 
submitting to their family, though they knew that their 
hard-earned pay was going to support weakness, heathenism, 
and thriftlessness. 

Not only financial rights, but all other individual rights 
and responsibilities, were absorbed by the superior right and 
duty of the family. If an individual committed theft, mur- 
der, or any other crime, the offended party would, if conven- 
ient, lay hold of him for punishment. But only if it was 
convenient; to this plaintiff justice in the case was fully 
satisfied if any member of the offender's family could be 
caught or killed, or, if the offence was great, even any 
member of the offender's tribe. 

Families recognized this custom as proper, and submitted 
to it; for the family expected to stand by and assist and 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 157 

defend all its members, whether right or wrong. Each 
member relied upon the family for escape from personal 
punishment, or for help in their individual weakness or 
inability. 

In getting a wife, for instance, no young man had saved up 
enough to buy one. His wages or other gains, year after 
year, beyond what he had squandered on himself, had been 
squandered on members of his family. The family therefore 
all contributed to the purchase of the wife. Though he 
thenceforth owned her as his wife, the family had claims on 
her for various services and work which neither he nor she 
could refuse. 

If in the course of time he had accumulated other women 
as a polygamist, and, subsequently becoming a Christian, was 
required to put away all but one (according to missionary 
rule), it was difficult for him to do so, not because of any 
special affection for the women involved in the dismissal, nor 
for pity of any hardship that might come to the women them- 
selves. True, they would be a pecuniary loss to him; but 
his Christianity, if sincere, could accept that. And the dis- 
missal of the extra women does not, in Africa, impose on 
them special shame, nor any hardship for self-support, as in 
some other countries. The real trouble is that they are not 
his to dismiss without family consent. The family had a 
pecuniary claim on them, and the heathen members thereof 
are not willing to let them go free back to their people. If 
this man puts them away, he must give them to some man or 
men in the family pale who probably already are polygamists. 
The property must be kept in the family inheritance. Thus, 
though attempting to escape from polygamy himself, this 
man would be a consenting party in fastening it on others. 
His offence before the church therefore would still be much 
the same. 

For such concentrated interests as are represented in the 
family, there naturally would be fetiches to guard those in- 
terests separate from the* individual fetich with its purely 
personal interests. 



158 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Respect for the family fetich is cognate to the worship of 
the spirits of ancestors. Among the Barotse of South Africa, 
for this worship, "they have altars in their huts made of 
branches, on which they place human bones, but they have 
no images, pictures, or idols." 

Among the Mpongwe tribes of Western Equatorial Africa, 
"the profound respect for aged persons, by a very natural 
operation of the mind, is turned into idolatrous regard for 
them when dead. It is not supposed that they are divested 
of their power and influence by death, but, on the contrary, 
they are raised to a higher and more powerful sphere of in- 
fluence, and hence the natural disposition of the living, and 
especially those related to them in any way in this world, to 
look to them, and call upon them for aid in all the emergen- 
cies and trials of life. It is no uncommon thing to see large 
groups of men and women, in times of peril or distress, as- 
sembled along the brow of some commanding eminence 
or along the skirts of some dense forest, calling in the 
most piteous and touching tones upon the spirits of their 
ancestors. 

" Images are used in the worship of ancestors, but they are 
seldom exposed to public view. They are kept in some secret 
corner, and the man who has them in charge, especially if 
they are intended to represent a father or predecessor in 
office, takes food and drink to them, and a very small por- 
tion of almost anything that is gained in trade. 

" But a yet more prominent feature of this ancestral wor- 
ship is to be found in the preservation and adoration of the 
bones of the dead, which may be fairly regarded as a species 
of relic worship. The skulls of distinguished persons are 
preserved with the utmost care, but always kept out of sight. 
I have known the head of a distinguished man to be dis- 
severed from the body when it was but partly decomposed, 
and suspended so as to drip upon a mass of chalk provided 
for the purpose. The brain is supposed to be the seat of 
wisdom, and the chalk absorbs this by being placed under 
the head during the process of decomposition. By applying 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 159 

this to the foreheads of the living, it is supposed they will 
imbibe the wisdom of the person whose brain has dripped 
upon the chalk." 1 

In the Benga tribe, just north of the equator, in West 
Africa, this family fetich is known by the name of Yaka. It 
is a bundle of parts of the bodies of their dead. From time 
to time, as their relatives die, the first joints of their fingers 
and toes, especially including their nails, a small clipping 
from a lobe of the ear, and perhaps snippings of hair are 
added to it. But the chief constituents are the finger ends. 
Nothing is taken from any internal organ of the body, as in 
the composition of other fetiches. This form descends by 
inheritance with the family. In its honor is sacredly kept 
a bundle of toes, fingers, or other bones, nail clippings, eyes, 
brains, etc., accumulated from deceased members of succes- 
sive generations. This is distinctly an ancestor worship. 

"The worship of ancestors is a marked and distinguishing 
characteristic of the religious system of Southern Africa. 
This is something more definite and intelligible than the re- 
ligious ceremonies performed in connection with the other 
classes of spirits." 2 

What was described by Dr. Wilson as respect for the aged 
among the tribes of Southern Guinea forty years ago, is true 
still, in a large measure, even where foreign customs and 
examples of foreign traders and the practices of foreign 
governments have broken down native etiquette and native 
patriarchal government. "Perhaps there is no part of the 
world where respect and veneration for age are carried to a 
greater length than among this people. For those who are 
in office, and who have been successful in trade or in war, 
or in any other way have rendered themselves distinguished 
among their fellow-men, this respect, in some outward forms 
at least, amounts almost to adoration, and proportionately so 
when the person has attained advanced age. All the 
younger members of society are early trained to show the ut- 
most deference to age. They must never come into the pres- 

1 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 393. 2 Ibid. 



X 



160 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

ence of aged persons or pass by their dwellings without taking 
off their hats and assuming a crouching gait. When seated 
in their presence, it must always be at a ' respectful dis- 
tance,' — a distance proportioned to the difference in their 
ages and position in society. If they come near enough to 
hand an aged man a lighted pipe or a glass of water, the 
bearer must always fall upon one knee. Aged persons must 
always be addressed as ' father ' (rera, lale, paia) or ' mother ' 
(ngwe, ina). Any disrespectful deportment or reproachful 
language toward such persons is regarded as a misdemeanor 
of no ordinary aggravation. A youthful person carefully 
avoids communicating any disagreeable intelligence to such 
persons, and almost always addresses them in terms of flattery 
and adulation. And there is nothing which a young person 
so much deprecates as the curse of an aged person, and es- 
pecially that of a revered father." 

The value of the Yaka seems to lie in a combination of 
whatever powers were possessed during their life by the dead, 
portions of whose bodies are contained in it. But even these 
are of use apparently only as an actual "medicine," the effi- 
ciency of the medicine depending on the spirits of the family 
dead being associated with those portions of their bodies. 
This efficiency is called into action by prayer, and by the in- 
cantations of the doctor. 

" In some cases all the bones of a beloved father or mother, 
having been dried, are kept in a wooden chest, for which a 
small house is provided, where the son or daughter goes 
statedly to hold communication with their spirits. They do 
not pretend to have any audible responses from them, but it 
is a relief to their minds in their more serious moods to go 
and pour out all the sorrows of their hearts in the ear of a 
revered parent. 

"This belief, however much of superstition it involves, 
exerts a very powerful influence upon the social character of 
the people. It establishes a bond of affection between the 
parent and child much stronger than could be expected 
among a people wholly given up to heathenism. It teaches 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 161 

the child to look up to the parent, not only as its earthly pro- 
tector, but as a friend in the spirit land. It strengthens the 
bonds of filial affection, and keeps up a lively impression of 
a future state of being. The living prize the aid of the dead, 
and it is not uncommon to send messages to them by some 
one who is on the point of dying; and so greatly is this aid 
prized by the living that I have known an aged mother to 
avoid the presence of her sons, lest she should by some secret 
means be despatched prematurely to the spirit world, for the 
double purpose of easing them of the burden of taking care 
of her, and securing for themselves more effective aid than 
she could render them in this world. 

" All their dreams are construed into visits from the spirits 
of their deceased friends. The cautions, hints, and warnings 
which come to them through this source are received with the 
most serious and deferential attention, and are always acted 
upon in their waking hours. The habit of relating their 
dreams, which is universal, greatly promotes the habit of 
dreaming itself, and hence their sleeping hours are character- 
ized by almost as much intercourse with the dead as their 
waking hours are with the living. This is, no doubt, one of 
the reasons of their excessive superstitiousness. Their imagi- 
nations become so lively that they can scarcely distinguish 
between their dreams and their waking thoughts, between the 
real and the ideal, and they consequently utter falsehood 
without intending, and profess to see things which never 
existed." 1 

All that is quoted above from Dr. Wilson is still true 
among tribes not touched by civilization. What he relates 
of the love of children for parents and the desire to communi- 
cate with their departed spirits is particularly true of the 
children of men and women who have held honorable posi- 
tion in the community while they were living. And it is 
also all consistent with what I have described of the fear 
with which the dead are regarded, and the dread lest they 
should revenge some injury done them in life. The common 

1 Wilson, Western Africa. 
11 



162 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

people, and those who have neglected their friends in any 
way, are the ones who dread this. The better classes, espe- 
cially of the superior tribes, hold their dead in affectionate 
remembrance. 

I have met with instances of the preservation of a parent's 
brains for fetich purposes, as mentioned above by Dr. Wilson. 
As honored guest, I have been given the best room in which 
to sleep overnight. On a flat stone, in a corner of the room? 
was a pile of grayish substance ; it was chalk mixed with the 
decomposed brain-matter that had dripped on it from the 
skull that formerly had been suspended above. I then re- 
membered how, on visiting chiefs in their villages, they 
frequently were not in the public reception-room on my 
arrival, but I was kept awaiting them. They had been 
apprised of the white man's approach, had retired to their 
bedrooms, and when they reappeared, it was with their fore- 
heads, and sometimes other parts of their bodies, marked 
with that grayish mixture. The objects to be attained were 
wisdom and success in any question of diplomacy or in a 
favor they might be asking of the white man. 

Around the doctor and his power is always a cloak of mys- 
tery which I have not been able to solve entirely, and of 
which the natives themselves do not seem to have a clear un- 
derstanding. The other factors in their fetich worship have 
to them a degree of clearness sufficient to make them able to 
give an intelligible explanation. It is plain, for instance, 
that the component parts of any fetich are looked upon by 
them as we look upon the drugs of our materia medica. It 
is plain, also, that these " drugs " are operative, not as ours, 
by certain inherent chemical qualities, but by the presence 
of a spirit to whom they are favorite media. And it is also 
clear that this spirit is induced to act by the pleasing en- 
chantments of the magic doctor. But beyond this, what? 
Whence does the doctor get his influence ? What is there in 
his prayer or incantation greater than the prayer or drum or 
song or magic mirror of any other person? For, admit- 
tedly, he himself is subject to the spirits, and may be 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 163 

thwarted by some other more powerful spirit which for the 
time being is operated by some other doctor; or he may 
be killed by the very spirit he is manipulating, if he should 
incur its displeasure. 

Belief in the necessity of having the doctor is implicit, 
while the explanation of his modus operandi is vague, and 
he is feared lest he employ his utilized spirit for revenge 
or other harmful purpose. A patient and his relatives who 
call in the services of a doctor are therefore careful to obey 
him, and avoid offending him in any way. 

The Yaka is appealed to in family emergencies. Suppose, 
for instance, that one member has secretly done something 
wrong, e. g., alone in the forest, he has met and killed a 
member of another family, devastated a neighbor's plantation, 
or committed any other crime, and is unknown to the com- 
munity as the offender. But the powerful Yaka of the 
injured family has brought disease or death, or some other 
affliction, on the offender's family. They are dying or other- 
wise suffering, and they do not know the reason why. After 
the failure of ordinary medicines or personal fetiches to re- 
lieve or heal or prevent the continuance of the evil, the 
hidden Yaka is brought out by the chiefs of the offender's 
family. A doctor is called in consultation; the Yaka is to 
be opened, and its ancestral relic contents appealed to. At 
this point the fears of the offender overcome him, and he 
privately calls aside the doctor and the older members of the 
clan. He takes them to a quiet spot in the forest and con- 
fesses what he has done, taking them -to the garden he had 
devastated, or to the spot where he had hidden the remains 
of the person he had killed. If this confession were made to 
the public, so that the injured family became aware of it, his 
own life would be at stake. But making it to his Yaka, and 
to only the doctor and chosen representatives of his family, 
they are bound to keep his secret; the doctor on professional 
grounds, and his relatives on the grounds of family solidarity. 
The problem, then, is for the doctor to make what seems like 
an expiation, The explanation of this, as made to me, is 



164 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

vague. I am uncertain whether the Yaka of the injured 
family is to be appeased or the offender's own Yaka aroused 
from dormant inaction to efficient protection, or both. The 
Yaka bundle is solemnly opened by the doctor in the presence 
of the family ; a little of the dust of its foul contents is rubbed 
on the foreheads of the members present; a goat or sheep is 
killed, and its blood sprinkled on them, the while they are 
praying audibly to the combined ancestor-power in the Yaka. 
These prayers are continued all the while the doctor, who 
makes his incantations long and varied, is acting. The sanc- 
tifying red- wood powder ointment is rubbed over their bodies, 
and the Yaka spirit having eaten the life essence of the sacri- 
ficed animal, its flesh is eaten by the doctor and the family. 
The Yaka bundle is tied up again, and again is hidden 
away in one of their huts, care being taken to add to it from 
the body of the member who next dies. The curse that 
had fallen on them is supposed to be wiped out, and the 
affliction under which they were lying is believed to be 
removed. 

Recently (1901) a Mpongwe man had gone as a trader into 
the Batanga interior. He was sick at the time of his going, 
one of his legs being swollen with an edematous affection, 
so much so that people in the interior, natives of that part 
of the country, and fellow- traders, wondered that he should 
travel so far from his home in that condition. He said he 
was seeking among different tribes for the cure he had failed 
to obtain in his own tribe. Later on, he died. He happened 
to die alone, while others who lived with him, one of them 
a relative, were temporarily out of the house. The sudden- 
ness of the death aroused the superstitious beliefs of the 
relative, and he rushed to the conclusion that it had been 
caused by black art machinations of some enemy. But of the 
whereabouts or the personality of that enemy he had not 
even a suspicion. He cut from the dead man's body the 
first joints of his fingers and all the toe-nails, put them in 
the hollow of a horn, and closed its opening, intending to 
add its contents to his family Yaka when he should return 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 165 

to Gabun. Then he waved the horn to and fro toward the 
spirits of the air, held it above his head, and struck it on the 
back of his own neck, uttering at the same time an impreca- 
tion that as his relative had died, so might die that very day, 
even as he had died, the unknown enemy who had caused 
his death. 

There is another family "medicine," still used in some 
tribes, that was formerly held in reverence by the Banaka 
and Bapuku tribes of the Batanga country of the German 
Kamerun colony. It was called " Malanda. " For description 
of it see Chapter XVI. 

Another medicine similar to the Yaka in its family in- 
terest is called by the Balimba people living north of Batanga, 
"Ekongi." The following statement is made to me by intel- 
ligent Batanga people who know the parties, and who believe 
that what they report actually occurred. 

At Balimba, in the German Kamerun territory, lived a 
man, by name Elesa. He possessed a little bundle contain- 
ing powerful fetich medicines, so compounded that they 
constituted the kind of charm known as Ekongi. Like 
Aladdin's lamp, and almost as powerful, it warned him of 
danger, helped him in all his wishes, assisted him in his 
emergencies, and when he was away from it, as it was 
hidden in one of his chests in his house, caused him to be 
able to see and hear anything that was plotted against 
him. Only he could handle it aright; no one else would 
be able to manage it. 

A brother-in-law of Elesa, husband of his sister, knew of 
this Ekongi, and asked Elesa to loan it to him in order that 
he also might be successful in some of his projects. 

Now, the peculiarity of the Ekongi medicine is that it 
acts for and assists only the family of the person who owns 
it. Elesa refused his brother-in-law, telling him that as they 
did not belong to the same family, he would not know what 
to do with a strange Ekongi, nor would Ekongi be willing to 
answer a stranger. 

The brother-in-law knew perfectly well that this was the 



166 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

manner of all Ekongi medicine ; but he was so covetous and 
so foolishly determined that he hoped that in some way this 
Ekongi might be of use to him if only he could possess 
himself of it. 

One day Elesa went off into the forest on a hunting trip, 
leaving his Ekongi safely locked in a chest in his house. 
The brother-in-law obtained a number of keys, and going 
secretly to Elesa's house, tried them on the various chests 
stored in the back room. Finally a key fitted, and a lock 
turned. Suddenly the lid flew up, and out of the now 
opened chest jumped the little Ekongi bundle, followed by 
all the goods that had been packed in the chest; and these 
spread themselves at his feet, — yards of cloth, and hats, and 
shirts, and coats, and a multitude of smaller articles. He 
rejoiced at the success of his effort. His covetousness over- 
came him. He said to himself that he would put back Ekongi 
into the chest, would lock it, gather up all this wealth and 
carry it away ; and no one would see them, or know that the 
chest had been opened by him. 

He started to step forward, but his feet were held fast by 
some invisible power. He tried to stoop down to lay hold of 
some of the goods within reach, but his arms and back were 
held fast and stiff by the same invisible power. And he 
realized that he was a prisoner in Ekongi's hands. 

Off in the forest Elesa, in his chase, was enabled by his 
Ekongi to see and know what was going on in his house. 
He saw his brother-in-law's attempt at theft, and that his 
unlawful eyes had looked on the sacred Ekongi. He aban- 
doned the chase that day, and came back in great anger to 
his house. There was his brother-in-law rooted to the spot 
on which he stood, the chest open and empty, and the goods 
scattered on the floor. 

Elesa controlled his anger, and at first said nothing. He 
quietly took a chair from the room out into the street and sat 
down on it, opposite to the doorway, as if on guard. Then 
he spoke: "So! now! You have looked on my Ekongi! 
And you have tried to steal ! I will not speak of the shame- 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 167 

ful thing of stealing from a relative. 1 That is a little thing 
compared with the sin you have done of looking on what was 
not lawful for your eyes. We are of different families. I 
will punish you by taking away my sister, your wife. You 
shall stand there until you agree to deliver up your wife, and 
also an amount of goods equal to what you paid for her." 
The brother-in-law began to plead against the hard terms, and 
offered to put his father into Elesa's hand instead of the wife. 
But Elesa insisted. 

The brother-in-law's father, at a distant village, possessed 
also his own family Ekongi, which enabled him to see and 
know what was being said and done at Elesa's house. He 
was angry at the hard terms demanded ; according to 
native view, he would defend any one of his family, even if 
he were in the wrong. A native eye does not look at es- 
sential wrong or right; it looks at family interest. His son's 
attempt at theft did not disturb him. It was enough that 
Elesa had seized his son as prisoner. He snatched up his 
spear, and hasted away to quarrel with his marriage relative 
Elesa. 

On reaching the house, he saw his son still standing help- 
less, and Elesa seated, still pressing his hard terms on him. 
The father said to Elesa, " You are not doing well in this 
matter. Let my son go at once!" 

Elesa refused, saying, " He wanted that which was sacred 
to me. He has looked upon it and has desecrated it. I will 
not agree that the angry Ekongi shall let him go free. He 
shall pay his ransom." After a long discussion Elesa changed 
his terms, and demanded a money substitute of one thousand 
German marks in silver ($250). The father also receded from 
his demand that the son should be released unconditionally. 
And after further discussion the father, having saved both 
his son and himself from the first terms of the ransom, re- 
turned again to the question of a person instead of money, 
and offered his daughter in marriage instead of the $250. 

1 To a native African that is a much greater wrong than stealing from other 
people, particularly from foreigners. — R. H. N. 



168 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Elesa accepted. He picked up the now satisfied Ekongi, and 
put it back into the chest; and all the scattered goods fol- 
lowed it, drawn by its power. And when the lid was again 
closed down and locked, the brother-in-law felt his limbs 
suddenly released from constriction, and was able to walk 
away. 

This was gravely told me by my cook, a member of the 
Roman Catholic church, and was endorsed by a woman of 
my own church, who was present during the recital. 

My friend the late Miss Mary H. Kingsley, on page 273 of 
her "Travels in West Africa," mentions an incident which 
shows that she had discovered one of these Yaka bundles, 
though apparently she did not know it as such and sus- 
pected it to be a relic of cannibalism. It is true, however, 
that she did come in contact with cannibalism. She had 
been given lodging in a room of a house in a Fang village in 
the country lying between the Azyingo branch of the Ogowe 
River and the Rembwe branch of the Gabun River. On re- 
tiring at night, she had observed some small bags suspended 
from the wall. "Waking up again, I noticed the smell in 
the hat was violent, from being shut up, I suppose, and it 
had an unmistakably organic origin. Knocking the end off 
the smouldering bush-light that lay burning on the floor, I 
investigated, and tracked it to those bags; so I took down 
the biggest one, and carefully noted exactly how the tie-tie 
(rattan rope) had been put around its mouth; for these 
things are important, and often mean a lot. I then shook its 
contents out in my hat for fear of losing anything of value. 
They were a human hand, three big toes, four eyes, two ears, 
and other portions of the human frame. The hand was fresh, 
the others only so-so and shrivelled. Replacing them, I tied 
the bag up, and hung it up again." It was well she noticed 
a peculiarity in the tying of the calamus -palm string or 
"tie-tie." A stranger would not have been put in that 
room of whose honesty or honor there was doubt. White 
visitors are implicitly trusted that they will neither steal nor 
desecrate. 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 169 

Another family medicine in the Batanga region is known 
by the name of Mbati. An account of the mode of its use 
was given me in 1902 by a Batanga man, as occurring in his 
own lifetime with his own father. The father was a heathen 
and a polygamist, having several wives, by each of whom he 
had children. One day he went hunting in the forest. He 
observed a dark object crouching among the cassava bushes 
on the edge of a plantation. Assuming that it was a wild 
beast wasting the cassava plants, he fired, and was frightened 
by a woman's outcry, "Oh! I am killed!" She was his 
own niece, who had been stooping down, hidden among the 
bushes as she was weeding the garden. He helped her to 
their village, where she died. She made no accusation. The 
bloodshed being in their own family, no restitution was re- 
quired, nor any investigation made. The matter would 
have passed without further comment had not, within a year, 
a number of his young children died in succession; and it 
began to be whispered that perhaps the murdered woman's 
spirit was avenging itself, or perhaps some other family was 
using witchcraft against them. A general council of adja- 
cent families was called. After discussion, it was agreed 
that the other families were without blame ; that the trouble 
rested with my informant's father's family, which should 
settle the difficulty as they saw best, by inflicting on the father 
some punishment, or by propitiation being made by the entire 
family. The latter was decided on by the doctors. They 
gathered from the forest a quantity of barks of trees, leaves 
of parasitic ferns, which were boiled in a very large kettle 
along with human excrement, and a certain rare variety of 
plantain, as small as the smallest variety of banana. To 
each member of the family present, old and young, male and 
female, were given two of these unripe plantains. The rind 
does not readily peel off from unripe plantains and bananas ; 
a knife is generally used. But for this medicine the rinds 
were to be picked of! only by the finger-nails of those hand- 
ling them, and then were to be shredded into the kettle in 



170 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

small pieces, also only by their finger-nails. A goat or sheep 
was killed, and its blood also mixed in. This mess was 
thoroughly boiled. Then the doctor took a short bush 
having many small branches (a tradition of hyssop?), and 
dipping it into the decoction, frequently and thoroughly 
sprinkled all the members of the family, saying, "Let the 
displeasure of the spirit for the death of that woman, or any 
other guilt of any hidden or unknown crime, be removed ! " 
The liquid portion of the contents of the kettle having been 
used in the propitiatory sprinkling, the more solid pottage - 
like debris was then eaten by all members of the family, as 
a preventive of possible danger. And the rite was closed 
with the usual drum, dance, and song. My informant told 
me that at that time, and taking part in the ceremonies, was 
his mother, who was then pregnant with him. The Mbati 
medicine seems to have been considered efficient, for he, 
the seventh child, survived; and subsequently three others 
were born. The previous six had died. Though two of 
those three have since died, in some way they were con- 
sidered to have died by Njambi (Providence), i. e., a natural 
death ; for it is not unqualifiedly true that all tribes of Africa 
regard all deaths as caused by black art. There are some 
deaths that are admitted to be by the call of God, and for 
these there is no witchcraft investigation. 

The father also is dead. My informant and one sister sur- 
vive. They think the Mbati " medicine " was satisfactory, 
notwithstanding that the sister believes that their father was 
secretly poisoned by his cousins, they being jealous of his 
affluence in wives and children. 

The last step in the Mbati rite is the transplanting of some 
plant. A suitable hole having been dug at one end, or even 
in the middle of the village street, each person takes a bulb 
of lily kind, probably a crinum or an amaryllis, such as are 
common on the rocky edges of streams, and pressing it against 
their backs and other parts of their body, and with a rhythmic 
swaying of their bodies plant it in the hole. Thereafter 



RELATION TO THE FAMILY 



171 



these plants are not destroyed. They are guarded from 
the village goats by a small enclosure, and should at any 
time the village remove, the plants are also removed and 
replanted on the new site. Such plants are seen in almost 
every village. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE FETICH — ITS RELATIONS TO DAILY WORK AND 
OCCUPATIONS AND TO THE NEEDS OF LIFE 

IN the great emergencies of life, such as plagues, famines, 
deaths, funerals, and where witchcraft and black art 
are suspected, the aid or intervention of special fetiches is 
invoked, as has been described in the Yaka and other public 
ceremonies. The ritual required in such cases is often expen- 
sive, as money is needed for the doctor's fee, for purchase 
of ingredients and other materials for the " medicine," and 
in the entertainment of the assemblage that always gather 
as participants or spectators. 

There is also loss in time, little as the native African values 
time, and slow as he is in the expedition of any matter,. 
Houses that should be erected and gardens that should be 
planted are neglected while the rite to be performed is in 
hand. It may require even a month. During that time 
either the favorable season for building or planting may have 
passed, or the work has only partly been completed. The 
division of the seasons into two rainy (of three months each) 
and two dry (a short hot and a long cool) make it desirable, 
as in the temperate zones, for certain work to be done in 
certain seasons. 

But for the needs of life, day by day, with its routine of 
occupations, whose outgoings and incomings are known and 
expected, the Bantu fetich worshipper depends on himself and 
his regular fetich charms, which, indeed, were made either 
at his request by a doctor (as we would order a suit of 
clothes from a tailor), or by himself on fetich rule obtained 
from a doctor ; and when paid for, the doctor is no longer 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 173 

needed or considered. The worshipper keeps these amulets 
and mixed medicines hanging on the wall of his room or 
hidden in one of his boxes. But he gives them no regular 
reverence or worship, no sacrifice or prayer, until such times 
as their services are needed. He knows that the utilized 
actual spirits (or at least their influence), each in its specific 
material object, is safely ensconced and is only waiting the 
needs of its owner to be called into action. 

These needs come day by day. Almost daily some one in 
the village is hunting, warring, trading, love-making, fishing, 
planting, or journeying. 

For Hunting. The hunter or hunters start out each with 
his own fetich hanging from his belt or suspended from his 
shoulder ; or, if there be something unusual, even if it be 
not very great, in the hunt about to be engaged in, a temporary 
charm may be performed by the doctor or even by the hunters 
themselves. This is the more likely to be done if there is an 
organized hunt including several persons. Such ceremonies 
preliminary to the chase are described by W. H. Brown 1 as 
performed by an old witch-doctor among the Mashona tribe : 
" Fat of the zebra, eland, and other game was mixed with dirt 
and put into a small pot. Then some live coals were placed 
on the grease, which caused it to burn, so that clouds of thick 
smoke arose. The huntsmen sat in a circle around the pot, 
with the muzzles of their old flint-locks and cap-guns sticking 
into the smoke. In unison they bent over and took a smell 
of the fumes, and at the same time called out the name of the 
'medicine' or spirit they were invoking, which was Saru, 
saying thus, ' Saru, I must kill game ; I must kill game, Saru ! 
Now, Saru, I must kill game ! ' 

"After this performance was finished, each of the candi- 
dates in turn sat down near the doctor, to be personally 
operated upon by him. He placed a bowl of medicated water 
upon the huntsman's head, and stirred it with a stick while 
the latter repeated the names of all the kinds of game he 
wished to kill. This was to ascertain whether or not the hunt 

1 On the South African Frontier, p. 214. 



174 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

was to be successful. If any of the water splashed out and 
ran down over the patient's head and face, success was assured. 
If not a drop had left the bowl, then the huntsman might as 
well have laid aside his gun and assegai, for his efforts would 
have been doomed to failure." 

Among the Matabele of Southeast Africa, " when they are 
about to start for the chase, they arrange themselves in a 
circle at sunset, and the doctor comes with the bark of a tree 
filled with medicine, and with his ringer marks the chiefs on 
the forehead, in order to give them authority over the animals." 

For Journeying. No journey of importance is made without 
preparation of a fetich, to which more forethought and time 
and care are given than to the preparation of food, clothing, 
etc., for the way. Arnot 1 describes the process : " On behalf 
of a caravan to start for Bihe, Msidi and his fetich priests 
have been at work a whole month, preparing charms and so 
forth. The process in such a case is first to divine as to the 
dangers that await them ; then to propitiate with the appointed 
sacrifices to forefathers (in this case two goats were killed) ; 
afterwards to prepare the charms necessary either as anti- 
dotes against evil or to secure good. The noma or fetich 
spear to be carried in front of the caravan, with charms 
secured to it, was thus prepared. The roots of a sweet herb 
were tied around the blade ; then a few bent splinters of wood 
were tied on, like the feathers of a shuttle-cock. In the cage 
thus formed, there were placed a piece of human skin, little 
bits of the claws of a lion, leopard, and so forth, with food, 
beer, and medical roots; thus securing, respectively, power 
over their enemies, safety from the paws of fierce animals, 
food and drink, and finally health. A cloth was sewn over 
all, and finally the king spat on it and blessed it. After all 
these performances they set out with light hearts, each man 
marked with sacred chalk." 

" Before starting on a journey a man will spend perhaps a 
fortnight in preparing charms to overcome evils by the way 
and to enable him to destroy his enemies. If he is a trader, 

1 Gareuganze, p. 207. 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 175 

he desires to find favor in the eyes of chiefs and a liberal price 
for his goods." 

For ^ Warring. So implicit is African faith in signs, charms, 
and auspices, that when the sign before going into war 
is inauspicious, the natives' hopelessness of success sometimes 
makes them seem almost cowardly. Among the people of 
Garenganze in Southeast Africa, " when the chiefs meet in 
war, victory does not depend on merely strength and courage, 
as we should suppose, but on fetich ' medicines.' If some 
men on the side of the more powerful chief fall, they at 
once retire and acknowledge that their medicines have failed, 
and they cannot be induced to renew the conflict on any 
consideration." * 

Among the Matabele, "before a war the doctors concoct 
a special medicine, and taking some of the froth from it, mark 
with it the forehead of those who have already killed a man." 

A native of Batanga recently described to me the war-fetich 
as formerly prepared by his people. The medicine for it is 
arranged for thus. A house is built at least several hun- 
dred yards from the village. There will be present no one but 
the doctor, who eats and sleeps there while he is arranging with 
the spirits and deciding on the medicine. After two days he 
tells the people that he has finished it, that his preparations 
are ready, and that they must assemble at his house. He tells 
them to bring with them a certain shaped spear with prongs. 
Men have already gathered in the village, to the number of 
several hundred, waiting for the war. The doctor chooses from 
among them some man whom he sends to the forest to get 
a certain ingredient, a red amomum pod. (It contains the 
" Guinea grains," or Malaguetta pepper, which taste like car- 
damom seeds, which a century ago were so highly valued in 
Europe that only the rich could buy them.) Then the doctor 
and the man, leaving the crowd, go together to the forest 
with knife and machete and basket. They may have to go 
several miles in order to find a tree called " unyongo-mua- 
ele." The doctor holds the chewed amomum seeds in his 

1 Arnot. 



176 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

mouth, and blows them out against the tree, saying, " Pha-a-a ! 
The gun shots ! Let them not touch me ! " The assistant 
holds the basket while the doctor climbs the tree and rubs off 
pieces of loose bark which are caught in the basket as they 
fall. They then go on into the forest to find another tree 
named " kota." There he blows the chewed seeds in the same 
way saying the same, — " Pha-a-a ! Thou tree ! Let not the 
bullets hit me ! " And the assistant, with basket standing be- 
low, catches the bark scraped down as the doctor climbs this 
tree. 

The}^ return to the village and enter the doctor's house. 
No women or children may enter the house or be present at 
the ceremonies. The men bring into the house a very big 
iron pot, and the doctor says, u This is what is to contain 
all the ingredients of the medicine." Then the doctor, with 
two other men, takes that spear by night, leaving all the 
other men to occupy themselves with songs of war, while the 
townspeople are asleep; they go to the grave of some man 
who has recently died. They dig open the grave, and force 
off the lid of the coffin. The doctor thrusts the spear down 
into the coffin into the head of the corpse. He twirls the spear 
about in the skull, so as to get a firm grip on it with the prongs 
of the spear. He changes his voice, and speaking in a hoarse 
guttural manner says, " Thou corpse ! Do not let any one 
hear what I say ! And do not thou injure me for doing this to 
you ! " When the spear is well thrust into the skull, he stoops 
into the grave, and with a machete cuts off the head. He goes 
away carrying the head on the spear-point. While doing all 
this, he wears not the slightest particle of clothing. They go 
back to the village to the doctor's house ; and there they 
catch a cock, and in the presence of the crowd the doctor 
twists (not cuts) off its head. The blood of the cock is caught 
in a large fresh leaf. He takes the fowl to the big pot, and 
lets some of its blood drip into it. The head of the corpse is 
also put into the pot, with water, and all the other ingredi- 
ents, including the spear. The bullets of the doctor's gun are 
also to go into the pot, which is then set over a fire. 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 177 

After the water has boiled the doctor takes a furry skin of 
a bush-cat, and all the hundreds of men stand on one side in 
a line. He dips the skin into the pot, and shakes it over them. 
As he thus sprinkles them, he lays on them a prohibition, 
thus : " All ye ! this month, go ye not near your wives ! " All 
that month is spent by them practising war songs and dances. 

Then the doctor takes the blood that was collected on the 
leaf, and mixes it with powdered red-wood. This mixture is 
tied up with the human head in a flying-squirrel's skin. He 
hangs this bundle up in the house over the place where he 
sits. The body of the fowl next day is torn in pieces, not 
cut with a knife, and placed in a small earthen pot with njabi 
oil (the oil of a large pulpy forest fruit), and nganda (gourd) 
seeds. An entire fresh plantain bunch is cut, and successive 
squads of the men peel each man his small piece with his 
finger-nails. These also they shred with their nails, part into 
the pot, and part on a plantain leaf, as the pot is small, and 
all the pieces will be added as the contents of the pot are 
gradually reduced. The doctor himself lifts the pot from the 
fire, and first eats of the mess, and then gives each of the men, 
with his hand, a small share. 

When all have finished eating, he opens the bundle that 
had been tied in the squirrel skin, and with the fibrous 
inner bark of a tree, kimbwa-mbenje (from which formerly 
was made the native bark-cloth), sponges the red rotten 
stuff on their breasts, saying, u Let no bullet come here ! " 
Then, led by the doctor, they march in procession to the 
town. There he tells the people of the town to try to shoot 
him, explaining that he does not wish any one to be in doubt 
of the efficacy of the charm. As he leads the procession, he 
holds the bundle in his hand, shouting, " Budu ! hah ! hah ! 
Budu ! hah ! hah ! " The " hah " is uttered with a bold aspi- 
ration. This is to embolden his followers. (" Budu ! hah ! " 
does not mean anything ; it is only a yell.) The people are 
terrified, though he is still shouting to them to fire at him. 
He is safe; for he leads the procession to where is sta- 
tioned a confederate, who does fire at him point blank from a 

12 



178 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

gun from which the bullets have been removed. It is a tri- 
umph for him ! The crowd see that not only he does not fall 
dead, but he is not even wounded ! The charm has turned 
aside the bullets ! 

The townspeople are then invited to join the procession. 
They stand up with the doctor and his crowd, and dance the 
war-dance. When the dancing is ended, he takes the bundle 
and anoints all the townspeople, even the women and chil- 
dren. And the men go to their war, sure of victory. But 
the doctor himself does not go; he remains safely behind, 
saying that it is necessary for him to watch the bundle in his 
house. Defeat in the war is easily explained by saying that 
some one in the crowd had spoiled the charm by not obeying 
some item in the ritual. 

For Trading. One method is described to me by a Batanga 
native who had seen it used by a certain man of his tribe. 
This man obtained the head of a dead person who had 
been noted for his intelligence. This he kept hidden in 
his house, lying in a white basin. To assure himself that it 
should be seen by no one else, he built a small hut in the 
behu (kitchen-garden), detached from his dwelling, and into 
which none but himself and wife should enter. There he 
kept the head in its basin. When he had occasion to go to 
a white man's trading-house to ask for goods or any other 
favor, he first poured water into this basin, mixed it with the 
decomposed brain that had oozed from the skull, and washed 
his cheeks in this dirty water. He also took some brain- 
matter, mixed it with palm-oil, and rubbed it over his hands. 
Then, on his going to the trading-house, when the white man 
shakes hands with him and looks on his face, he will be pleased 
and generously disposed, and will grant any request made. 

My informant told me that when he was a lad he assisted 
his father in using another method. His father was inti- 
mate with white men, trading extensively with them in ivory. 
To increase his credit, he set out to make a new fetich. He 
called the son to accompany him to the forest, and handed 
him a basket to carry. They searched among the trees until 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 179 

they found two growing near together, but bent in such a 
way toward each other that their trunks crossed in contact, 
and were rubbed smooth by abrasion; and when violently 
rubbing, in a storm, gave out a creaking sound. In that 
mysterious sound inhered the fetich power. He chose the 
trees, not for any value in their kind, but because of their 
singular juxtaposition and their weird sounds. He gathered 
bark from these trees, and the son carried the basketful back to 
their village. The father fixed the time of arrival and point 
of entrance so that they should not be seen as they came to 
their house. He then went out to the behu (kitchen-gar- 
den) and plucked four ripe plantains (mehole) ; and gathered 
leaves of a certain tree, by name "boka." An earthen pot con- 
taining water and pieces of the twin-tree bark was set over 
the fire, and into the pot were finely sliced the mehole and 
the boka leaves. To these were added a certain kind of fish, 
by name "hume," a bottle of palm-oil, gourd seeds, and ground- 
nuts. All these were thoroughly boiled together. When 
they were sufficiently boiled, he lifted off the pot from the 
fire, not by his hands, but by clasping its hot sides with his 
feet, as he sat on a low stool, and placed it on the ground. 
Sitting by it, he held his face over it, with a cloth thrown 
over his head, thus inhaling the steam. He remained in this 
steam bath for about an hour. 

At food time he cut two pieces of leaves from plantains, 
spread them on the ground and sat on them, and ate the mess 
that was in the pot. While eating, he uttered into the pot 
adjurations, e. g., "Let no one, not even a Mabeya tribesman, 
hinder me from the white man's good- will ! When I go some 
day to make my request to the white man, let him grant it ! " 
When he had finished eating, he told his son to carry the pot 
into an inner room and deposit it in a large box, which the 
father opened for that purpose. The pot was not washed ; it 
still contained the remains of the pottage. He told his son to 
reveal to no one what they had done. 

That very day he heard that his trade friend in the adjacent 
inferior Mabeya tribe had obtained an ivory tusk for him. 



180 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

He at once started out alone to meet his friend on the way, 
so as to be sure that it would not be carried to some one else ; 
but not as on other ordinary journeys. He was to look 
neither to the right nor to the left (as if watchful of possibly 
ambushed enemies), nor to look back, even if called by name ; 
but with eye straightforward, to walk steadily to the goal. 
Before starting, he had rubbed some of the pottage mess on 
his hand and tongue. On reaching the Mabeya village, his 
friend did not hesitate or haggle about the price, but promptly 
told him to take the tusk. Before selling it to the white 
trader, he scraped some ivory flakes from the outside of the 
tusk, put them into a decanter with two bottles of rum (before 
foreign liquor was known, native plantain beer was used) and 
pieces of the twin-tree bark. When subsequently he had 
occasion to go to the trading-house, he first drank a little 
from this decanter. 

Another Bwanga-bwa-Ibama, or trade medicine, is concocted 
as follows: A man who decides to make one for himself does 
not allow any one but his wife to know what he is about to do. 
He gathers from the forest leaves of a tree, by name "kota," 
the skin of a flying-squirrel (ngunye), from some dead per- 
son the nail from the fourth or little finger (of either hand), 
and the tip of the tongue, some drops of his wife's menses, a 
solution of red-wood powder, and the long tail-feathers of a 
forest bird, by name " kilinga. " He then provides himself with 
an antelope's horn. Having burned the squirrel skin, he puts 
its ashes into the horn, mixed with the above-named articles, 
including the feather, whose end is allowed to stick out. 
Then, with the gum of the okume, or African mahogany 
tree, he closes the mouth of the horn, as with a cork, to 
prevent the liquid contents from escaping. This horn he 
suspends by a string from his neck or shoulder whenever he 
takes it with him on a journey. He uses it in his trade 
dealings with both whites and blacks. Before beginning a 
bargain or asking a white trader or another person for gifts 
of goods, he secretly pulls out the feather through the soft 
gum, and rubs a little of the liquid on the end of his nose. 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 181 

When this fetich is not in use, it is hidden in his bedroom 
or other private part of his house. But no one, not even 
his own family, is allowed to know where it is kept. 

Among the Mpongwe tribes of the equator in West Africa 
there are trade medicines that involve actual murder. One 
of these is called "Okundu." Like modern spiritualism, it 
seeks to employ a human medium to communicate with the 
dead; but it is unlike spiritualism in that the medium must 
actually be killed before he can go on his errand. 

In the case of a man who seeks to become wealthy in trade 
and goes to a magic doctor for that purpose, the doctor 
tells him of the different kinds of medicine, and some of 
the most important things required for each. The seeker 
may choose what he is able and willing to do. For Okundu 
medicine it is required that the seeker shall name some one 
or more of his relatives who he is willing should die, and 
that their spirits be sent to influence white traders or other 
persons of wealth, and make them favorably disposed 
toward the seeker, so that they may employ him in positions 
of honor and profit.' If the seeker hesitate to do the actual 
murder, the doctor, by his black art, is to kill the person 
nominated and send him on his errand. If the fear should 
occur to the seeker that perhaps the murdered relative, in- 
stead of devoting himself in the spirit-world to the trade in- 
terests of his murderer, should attempt to avenge himself, the 
subject is dismissed by the doctor's assurance that either the 
spirit shall not know that the death of its body was premature, 
or that he will overrule it for the desired purpose. 

I know, personally, a Mpongwe man still living in Gabun 
who is believed to have done this Okundu. He is of promi- 
nent family, and had held lucrative service with white traders. 
His fortunes began to wane ; he fell into debt, and white men 
began to doubt him and hesitated to entrust him. Though 
wearing the dress of a civilized gentleman, he is a heathen 
at heart. He had a little slave boy. The child suddenly and 
mysteriously disappeared. Those who asked questions re- 
ceived evasive and contradictory answers. A very reliable 



182 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

native told me that it was known that this man had been 
communicating with an Okundu doctor, and many believed 
that the child had been put to death. But no one dared to 
say anything openly, and there was not sufficient proof on 
which to lay an information before the French governor, 
only a mile distant. 

Another Mpongwe trade medicine is Mbumbu (which means 
" rainbow"). Old tradition said that the rainbow was caused 
by a forest vine which a great snake had changed to the form 
of the sun-colored arc. The seeker of wealth is aided by the 
doctor to obtain a piece of this rainbow, which he keeps in 
secret, and can carry hidden with him. By it he is able at 
any time to kill any one of his relatives whom he may choose 
(of course unknown to them) and send their spirits off to in- 
duce foreign traders to give him a store of goods (the 
children's pot of gold at the rainbow's end?). 

For Sickness. Among the Mpongwe and adjacent tribes 
there are three kinds of spirits invoked, according to the 
character of the disease. These are Nkinda, Ombwiri, and 
Olaga. 

It is clear that these, as explained in a previous chapter, 
are names of spirits, but the same names (as in the case of 
other fetich mixtures) are given to the medicines in whose 
preparation they are invoked. But my informants differed 
in their opinions whether these names indicate different kinds 
of spirits, or only a difference in the functions or works done 
by them. One very intelligent and prominent native at first 
seemed uncertain, but subsequently said that "Nkinda " in- 
dicated the spirits of the common dead; "Ombwiri" the 
spirits of distinguished dead, kings, and other prominent 
men; and "Olaga," a higher class, who had been admitted to 
an "angelic " position in the spirit-world. All, however, as- 
serted that all these are spirits of former human beings. 
Which kind shall be invoked depends on the doctor's 
diagnosis of the disease. 

Take the case of some one who has been sick with an 
obscure disease that has not yielded to ordinary medication: 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 183 

the doctor begins his incantations with drum and dance and 
song. This is sometimes kept up all night, and in minor 
cases the patient is required to join in these ceremonies. 
But in the more mystic Nkinda, Ombwiri, and Olaga the sick 
person sits still, being required to do so as a part of the 
diagnosis. For if after a while the patient shall begin to 
nod his head violently, it is a sign that a spirit of some one 
of these three classes has taken possession of him. The 
doctor then takes him to a secret place in the forest, and 
asks the spirit what kind it is, and what the nature of the 
disease. The reply, though made by the patient, is not sup- 
posed to be his, but the spirit's who is using his mouth. Really 
the sick, dazed, submissive patient does not know what he is 
saying. After this diagnosis the doctor goes to seek plants 
suitable for the disease. By chance the patient may recover. 
If he does not, the doctor asserts that the spirit had misin- 
formed him, and the ceremony must be performed again. 

One of the physical signs indicating that Olaga, rather 
than Nkinda or Ombwiri, is the medicine to be used, is vomit- 
ing. Hemorrhages from the lungs would be included in the 
Olaga diagnosis. 

"Among the Mashonas of South Africa a 'medicine ' used 
is a small antelope horn called 'egona, ' in which was a 
mixture of ground-nut oil and a medicinal bark known as 
'unchanya. ' The concoction is taken out on the end of a stick 
termed 4 mutira,' and administered to the patient by dropping 
it into his ear. The doctor stated that it was a sure cure for 
headache. 

"Another horn, four inches long, called 'mulimate,' was 
for the purpose of cupping and bleeding, and is used in this 
wise: An incision is made with a knife into the body, the 
large end of the horn is placed over the wound ; then a vacuum 
is formed by the doctor's sucking the air out through an open- 
ing at the little end. The small hole is closed with wax, and 
the horn is left until it has become filled with clotted blood. 
This is the process of curing rheumatism and other maladies, 
which are supposed by the Mashonas to be literally drawn out 



184 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

with the blood. Bleeding is practised extensively; and I 
have seen natives bled from arms, legs, body, and head until 
they were so exhausted that weeks were required for their 
recovery. 

"Another important instrument was a brush made of a 
zebra's tail, among the hairs of which were tied many small 
roots and herbs possessing various medicinal properties. One 
of the remedies was known as 'gwandere, ' and, taken inter- 
nally, was a sure cure for worms, so the doctor stated. The 
brush was called 'muskwa, ' this being the name of any ani- 
mal's tail. The doctor demonstrated its use by operating 
upon a man in my presence. He placed some powdered 
herbs in a bowl of water, then dipped the brush in, and 
sprinkled the patient. Next, he performed several magic 
evolutions with the brush around the patient's body, at the 
same time repeating, 'May the sickness leave this person!' 
and so forth. The doctor told me that after this operation 
the patient was certain of recovery, unless some witch or 
spirit intervened to prevent it or to cause his death." 1 

For Loving. Love philtres are common, even among the 
civilized and professedly Christian portion of the community. 
Philtres are both male and female. If a woman says to her- 
self, " My husband does not love me ; I will make him love 
me!" or if any woman desires to make any man love her, she 
prepares a medicine for that purpose. This charm is called 
"Iyele." The process is as follows: First, she scrapes from 
the sole of her foot some skin, and lays it carefully aside. 
Next, when she has occasion to go to the public latrine at 
the seaside or on the edge of the forest, she washes her geni- 
tals in a small bowl of water, which she secretly carries to 
her house. Then, with a knife, she scrapes a little skin 
and mucous from the end of her tongue. These three in- 
gredients she mixes in a bottle of water, which is to be used 
in her cooking. 

The most attractive native mode of cooking fish and meat 
is in jomba ("bundle"). The flesh is cut into pieces and 

Brown, On the South African Frontier. 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 185 

laid in layers with salt, pepper, some crushed oily nut, and 
a little water. These all are tied up tightly in several thick- 
nesses of fresh green plantain leaves, and the bundle is set 
on a bed of hot coals. The water in the bundle is converted 
into steam before the thick fleshy leaves are charred through. 
The steam, unable to escape, permeates the fibres of the meat, 
thoroughly cooking it without boiling or burning. 

When the above-mentioned woman cooks for the man, her 
husband, or any other for whom she is making the philtre, 
the water she uses in the jomba is taken from that prepared 
bottle. This jomba she sets before him, and he eats of it 
(unaware, of course, of her intention, or of the special mode 
of preparation). It is fully believed that the desired effect 
is immediate; that, as soon as he has finished eating, all the 
thoughts of his heart will be turned toward this woman, and 
that he will be ready to comply with any wish of hers. No 
objection to her, or to what she says, coming from any other 
person in the village, male or female, will be regarded by 
him. 

I know a certain Gabun woman who boasted of her power, 
by the above-described means, to cause a certain white man 
whom she loved (but who was not her husband) to do any- 
thing at all that she bade him. 

.Also a small portion from that bottle may be poured 
(secretly) into the glass of liquor that is to be drunk by a 
favored guest. This is practised alike on visitors, white or 
black. 

The process of making a love charm by a man is more 
elaborate. The ingredients are more numerous and require 
more time in their collection. Having fixed his desire 
on some woman, he decides in his heart, "I am going to 
marry such and such a woman in such and such a village! " 
But he keeps his intention entirely secret. He proceeds to 
make the male charm called "Ebabi." (I do not know the 
origin of this word; it looks as if it belonged to the ad- 
jective " bobabu " = sof t, which is a derivative of the verb 
"babaka," to yield, to consent, to soften.) The first ingre- 



186 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

dient is coconut oil, which is poured into a flask made of 
a small gourd or calabash. Then, going to the forest, he 
gathers leaves of the bongam tree. Another day he will go 
again to the forest, and find leaves of the bokadi tree. Then 
he plucks some hairs from his arm-pits, and puts them and the 
bruised leaves, with some of his own urine, into the flask. 
This flask he then suspends from his kitchen roof above the 
itaka frame or hanging-shelf that in almost all kitchens is 
placed above the fire-hearth. It remains there in the smoke 
for ten days. Then taking it down, he inserts into it, tip 
downward, a long tail-feather of a large bird called " koka." 
He is ready then for his experiment. Any day that he 
chooses to go to seek the woman, he first draws out the 
feather, with whatever of the mixture clings to it, and 
wipes it on his hands. His hands he then rubs over his face 
rapidly and vigorously, saying, " So will I do to that woman! " 
He must immediately then start on his journey. This act 
of anointing his hands and face must have been his very last 
act before starting. And there are several prohibitions. He 
must have thought beforehand of all things needed to be done 
or handled, for after the anointing he must not touch any 
other thing. In taking the gourd-flask from above the 
hanging-shelf he must not touch the shelf. He must not 
rub or scratch his head. He must not handle a broom. 
He must not shake hands with any one on the path to the 
woman's village. All these prohibitions are in order that 
the anointed mixture may not be rubbed off, or its effect 
counteracted by contact with anything else. When he reaches 
the woman's village, he goes directly to her, and clasping her 
on the shoulder, he rubs his hands downward on her arm, 
saying, " You ! you woman ! I love you ! " Instantly the 
medicine is operative, and she is willing to go with him. 

If it is only a love affair, she goes secretly. If he offers 
her marriage, there is first the amicable settlement by the 
council that is then held by the woman's family as to the 
amount of the dowry to be paid for her. Presents having 
been given to her by him, the woman goes with the man 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 187 

without further objection. On reaching his house, he points 
out to her the gourd-flask hanging in the kitchen, and tells 
her, "Let that thing alone." But he does not inform her 
what it is ; nor does she know or suspect that it is anything 
more than an ordinary fetich. Nor does any one else know; 
for no one had been allowed to see him perform any part 
of the several processes of the ritual in compounding the 
charm. 

For Fishing. The prescription for making the fetich for 
success in fishing is as follows: Go in the morning early, 
while the rest of the villagers are asleep, to an adjacent 
marsh or pond. (Almost all African villages are built on 
or near the bank of some stream or lake.) Find a place 
where pond-lilies are growing. Wade into the pond, bend 
low in the water, and pluck three lily-pads. There are 
water-spiders, called " mbwa-ja-miba" (dogs of the water), 
generally running over the surface of the water at such 
places; catch four of them. Gather also leaves of another 
water-plant called "ngama." All these articles leave in the 
village in a safe place. When other fishers come in from 
the sea, go to the beach to meet them; and if they have 
among their catch a certain fish called "hume," having three 
spines, beg or buy it. This you are to dry over the fire. 
Watch the daily fishing until some one has killed a shark; 
obtain its heart, which also is to be dried. Take also a plate 
full of gourd seeds (nganda) and some ground-nuts (mbenda) ; 
also five " fingers " of unripe plantains cut from the living 
bunch on the stalk, and a tumblerful of palm-oil. All these 
above-named ingredients are to be mixed in one pot (which 
must be earthen) and are to be cooked in it. While the 
mess is boiling, sit by, face over the pot, in the steam rising 
from it, and speak into the pot, "Let me catch fish every 
day! every day ! " No people are to be present, or to see any 
of these proceedings. Take the pot off the fire, not with 
your hands, but by your feet, and set it on the ground. 
Take all your fish-hooks, and hold them in the steam arising 
from the pot. Take a banana leaf that is perfect and not 



188 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

torn by wind, and laying it on the ground, spread out the 
hooks on it. Then eat the stewed mess, not with a real 
spoon, but with a leaf twisted as a spoon. In eating, the 
inedible portions, such as fish-bones, skins, rind, and so 
forth, are not to be ejected from the mouth on the ground, 
but must be removed by the fingers and carefully laid on the 
banana leaf. Having finished eating, call one of the village 
dogs, as if it was to be given liberty to eat the remains of the 
mess. As the clog begins to eat, strike it sharply, and as 
the animal runs away howling, say, "So! may I strike fish! " 
Then kick the pot over. Take the refuse of food from the 
banana leaf, and the hooks, and lay them at the foot of the 
plantain stalk from which the five " fingers " were cut. Leave 
the pot lying as it was until night. Then, unseen, take it 
out into the village street, and violently dash it to pieces on 
the ground, saying, "So! may I kill fish!" It is expected 
that the villagers shall not hear the sound of the breaking of 
the vessel ; for it must be done only when they are believed 
to be asleep. When the bunch of plantains from which those 
fingers were taken ripens, and is finally cut down for food by 
others, you are forbidden to eat not only of it, but of the fruit 
of any of its shoots that in regular succession, year after j^ear 
(according to the manner of bananas and plantains), take the 
place of the predecessor stalk. You may never eat of their 
fruit. 

For Planting. Planting is done almost entirely by women. 
If a woman says to herself, " I want to have plenty of food ! 
I will make medicine for it! " she proceeds to gather the nec- 
essary ingredients. She takes her ukwala (machete), pavo 
(knife), short hoe (like a trowel), and elinga (basket), and 
goes to the forest. She must go very early in the morning, 
and alone. She gathers a leaf called "tube," another called 
" in jenji, " the bark of a tree called " bohamba, " the bark also of 
elamba, and leaves of bokuda. Hiding them in a safe place, 
she goes back to her village to get her earthen pot. Return- 
ing with it to the forest, she makes a fire, not with coals 
from the village, but with new, clean fire made by the two 



THE FETICH IN DAILY LIFE 189 

fire-sticks. These, used by natives before steel and flint 
were introduced, require often an hour's twirling before 
friction develops sufficient heat to cause a spark. The sparks 
are caught on thoroughly dried plantain fibre. Then she 
builds her fire. She goes to some spring or stream for water 
to put in the pot with the leaves and barks, and sets it on 
the lire. All this while she is not to be seen by other people. 
When the water has boiled, she sets the pot in the middle 
of the acre of ground which she intends to clear for her 
garden until its contents cool. In the meanwhile she goes 
to some creek and gets "chalk" (a white clay is found in 
places in the beds of streams). She washes it clean of mud 
and rubs it on her breast. Then she takes the pot, and 
empties its decoction by sprinkling it, with a bunch of leaves, 
over the ground, saying, " My forefathers ! now in the 
land of spirits, give me food! Let me have food more abun- 
dantly than all other people! " Then she again sets the pot 
in the middle of the proposed plantation. She takes from it 
the tube leaves and puts them into four little cornucopias 
(ehongo), which she rolls from another large leaf of the 
elende tree. She sets these in the four corners of the garden. 
Whenever she comes on any other day to work in the garden, 
she pulls a succulent plant, squeezes its juice into the ehongo ; 
and this juice she drops into her eye. To be efficient, this 
medicine has a prohibition connected with it, viz., that 
during the days of her menses she shall not go to the 
garden. N 

When her plants have grown, and she has eaten of them, 
she must break the pot. Having done so, she makes a large 
fire at an end of the garden, and burns the pieces of earthen- 
ware so that they shall be utterly calcined. It is not required 
that she shall stay by the fire awaiting that result. She may, 
if she wishes, in the meanwhile go back to her village. 
She takes the ashes of the pot, mixes them with chalk in 
a jomba (bundle) of leaves, which she ties to a tree of her 
garden in a hidden spot where people will not see it. 

Another strict prohibition is required of her by the medi- 



190 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

cine, viz., that she is not to steal from another woman's 
garden. If she break this law, her own garden will not 
produce. The jomba is kept for years, or as long as she 
plants at that place, and the chalk mixture is rubbed on 
her breast at each planting season. From time to time also, 
as the leaves of the jomba decay or break away, she puts 
fresh ones about it, to prevent the wetting of its contents 
by rain or its injury in any other way. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FETICH — SUPERSTITION IN CUSTOMS 

THE observances of fetich worship fade off into the cus- 
toms and habits of life by gradations, so that in some 
of the superstitious beliefs, while there may be no formal 
handling of a fetich amulet containing a spirit, nor actual 
prayer or sacrifice, nevertheless spiritism is in the thought, 
and more or less consciously held. 

In our civilization there are thousands of professedly Chris- 
tian people who are superstitious in such things as fear of 
Friday, No. 13, spilled salt, etc. In my childhood, at Easton, 
Pa., I was sent on an errand to a German farmhouse. The 
kind-hearted Frau was weeding her strawberry bed in the 
spring garden-making, and was throwing over the fence into 
the public road superfluous runners. I asked permission to 
pick them up to plant in my own little garden. She kindly 
assented, and I thanked her for them, whereupon she ex- 
claimed, "Ach! nein! nein! Das ist no goot! You say, 
'Dank you'; now it no can grow any more!" I was too 
young to inquire into the philosophy of the matter. Surely 
she would not forbid gratitude. I think the gist of what she 
thought my error was, that I had thanked her for what she 
considered a worthless thing and had thrown away. I do 
not think she would have objected to thanks for anything 
she valued sufficiently to offer as a gift. 

The difference between my old Pennsylvania-Dutch lady 
and my "Number 13 " acquaintances, and my African Negro 
friend is that to the former, while they are somewhat in- 
fluenced by their superstition, it is not their God. To the 
latter it is the practical and logical application of his religion. 
Theirs is a pitiable weakness ; his a trusted belief. 



192 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

It would be impossible to enumerate all the thousands of 
practices dominated by the superstitious beliefs of the Bantu, 
— practices which sometimes erect themselves into customs 
and finally obtain almost the force of law. Many of these 
are prevalent all over Africa ; others are local. 

Rules of Pregnancy. 

Everywhere are rules of pregnancy which bind both the 
woman and her husband. During pregnancy neither of 
them is permitted to eat the flesh of any animal which was 
itself pregnant at the time of its slaughter. Even of the flesh 
of a non-pregnant animal there are certain parts — the heart, 
liver, and entrails — which may not be eaten by them. It is 
claimed that to eat of such food at such a time would make 
a great deal of trouble for the unborn infant. During his 
wife's pregnancy a man may not cut the throat of any animal 
nor assist in the butchering of it. A carpenter whose wife 
is pregnant must not drive a nail. To do so would close the 
womb and cause a difficult labor. He may do all other work 
belonging to carpentering, but he must have an assistant to 
drive the nails. 

In my early years on Corisco Island, and while I was ex- 
pecting to become a father, I was one day superintending the 
butchering of a sheep. It was not necessary that I should 
actually use the knife; that was done by the cook; but I 
stood by to see that the work was done in a cleanly manner, 
and that in the flaying the skin should be rolled constantly 
away, so that the hair should not touch the flesh. In the 
dissection I assisted, so that the flesh should not be defiled 
by a carelessly wounded entrail. My servant was amazed, 
and said my child would be injured. He was still more 
shocked when Mrs. Nassau herself came to urge haste and 
to secure the liver for dinner. 

Among the station employees on Corisco in 1864 was an 
ex-slave, a recent convert, whose freedom had been pur- 
chased by one of the missionaries. The native non-Christian 
freemen begrudged him his position as a mission employee ; 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 193 

for his wages were now his own, and could no longer be 
claimed by his former master. Some of his fellow-servants, 
freemen, put off on him, as much as they could, the more 
menial tasks. It was incumbent, therefore, on the mission- 
aries to see that he was not oppressed by his fellows. Clear- 
ing of the graveyard was a task no one liked to have assigned 
to him ; and it was often thrown on poor Evosa. One day a 
newly arrived missionary, the Rev. George Paull, the noblest 
of my associates these forty years, who just then knew 
little of the language or of native thought or custom, 
ordered Evosa to take his hoe and clean the cemetery path. 
Evosa bluntly said, "Mba have! " (I won't). "You won't ! 
You refuse to obey me?" "Mba haye!" " Then I dismiss 
you." Evosa went away, much cast down. Some of his 
fellow-Christians came to me saying they were sorry for him, 
and asked me to interfere. "But," I said, "he should obey; 
the work is not hard." " Oh! but he can't do it! " " Why 
not?" "Because his wife is pregnant." Immediately I 
understood. Evosa may not have believed in the supersti- 
tion, but for all that, if he did the work and subsequently 
there should be anything untoward in his wife's confinement, 
her relatives would exact a heavy fine of him. We had not 
required our converts to disregard these prohibitions, if only 
they did not actually engage in any act of fetich worship. I 
was careful to say nothing to the natives that would under- 
mine my missionary brother's authority; but privately I in- 
timated to Mr. Paull that I thought that if he had been fully 
aware of the state of the case, he would not have dismissed 
the man. He was just, and reversed the dismissal. Evosa 
was pardoned also for the bluntness of his refusal ; it was a 
part of his slavish ignorance. In conclusion, I warned him 
that he should have explained to Mr. Paull the ground of his 
refusal, and should have asked for other work. He had not 
supposed that the white man did not know; and the ask- 
ing of excuse is a part of politeness that has to be taught. 
Almost every new missionary makes unwise or unjust orders 
and decisions before he learns on what superstitious grounds 

13 



194 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

he is treading. Not all are willing to be rectified as was my 
noble brother Paull. 

In the burial of a first-born infant the lid of the coffin is 
not only not allowed to be nailed down, but it must not en- 
tirely cover the corpse; a space must be left open (generally 
above the child's head); the superstition being that if the 
coffin be closed, the mother will bear no more children. 

Omens on Journeys. 

Almost every traveller in Africa, in publishing his story, 
has much to say about the difficulties in getting his caravan 
of porters started on their daily journey. His detailed ac- 
count of slowness, disobedience, and desertions is as monoto- 
nous to the reader as they were distressing to himself. Did 
he but know it, the fault was often largely his own. The 
man of haste and exactitude, that has grown up on railroad 
time-tables, demands the impossible of aborigines who never 
have needed to learn the value of time. Anglo-Saxon, Teu- 
tonic, and even Latin diligence expects too much of the 
happy-go-lucky African. The traveller fumes, and frets, 
and works himself into a fever. He would gain more in the 
end if he would festina lente. He would save himself many 
a quarrel or case of discipline (for which he earns the reputa- 
tion of being a hard master ; and for which, further on in the 
journey, he may be shot by one of his outraged servants) if 
he only knew that superstition had met his servant, as the 
angel "with his sword drawn" met Balaam's ass, "in a nar- 
row place" ; and that servant could no more have dared to 
go on in the way than could that wise ass who knew and saw 
what his angry master did not know. 

Mr. R. E. Dennett, for many years a resident in Loango 
among the Bavili people, and author of "Seven Years 
among the Fjort," recognizes this in " A Few Signs and 
Omens," contributed recently to a Liverpool weekly journal, 
"West Africa." What he says of the Fyat (Fiot) tribes is 
largely true of all the other West African tribes. "They 
have a number of things to take into consideration, when 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 195 

setting out upon a journey, which may account for many of 
those otherwise inexplicable delays which so annoy the white 
man at times when anxious to start ' one time ' for some place 
or other. 

" The first thing a white man should do is to see that the 
Negro's fetiches are all in order; then, when on the way, he 
must manage things so that the first person the caravan shall 
meet shall be a woman; for that is a good sign, while to 
meet a man means that something evil is going to happen. 
Then, to meet the bird Kna that is all black is a bad sign; 
while the Kna that has its wings tipped with white is a good 
sign. 

" The rat Benda running across your path from left to right 
is good ; from right to left fairly good ; should it appear from 
the left and run ahead in the direction you are going, ' Oh ! 
that is very good ! ' but should it run towards you, well, 
then the best thing for you to do is to go back ; for you are 
sure to meet with bad luck ! 

" See that your men start with their left foot first, and that 
they are 'high -steppers ' ; for if their left foot meet with an 
obstacle, and is not badly hurt, it is not a bad sign; but if 
their right foot knocks against anything, you must go back 
to town. 

" See that you do not meet that nasty brown bird called 
Mvia, that is always crying out, 'Via, via'; for that means 
4 witch-palaver, ' and strikes consternation into your people. 
Nobody likes to be reminded of his sins or witch deeds, and 
be condemned to be burnt in the fire; and that is what 'via ' 
means. 

"Then there is that moderately large bird with wings 
tipped with white called 'Nxeci,' also reminding one of 
'witch-palaver,' and continuously crying out, 'Ke-e-e, ' or 
'No.' You had far better not start. 

"Take care also to shoot the cukoo o Nkuku before it 
crosses your path ; for if you allow it to pass, you had better 
return; it is a bad omen. 

"Then, concerning owls; see that your camp at night is 



196 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

not disturbed by the cry of the Kulu (spirit of the departed), 
that warns you that one of you is going to die ; or that of the 
Xi-futu-nkubu, which means that you may expect some evil 
shortly. On the other hand, let the Mampaulo-paulo hoot 
as much as it likes; for that is a good sign. 

" Then look out that the snake Nduma does not cross your 
path ; for that is a sign of death, or else of warning to you 
that you should return and see to the fetich obligations 
the iron bracelet Ngofu reminds you of. Examine your men, 
and ask those who wear the bracelet the following questions : 
Have you eaten the flesh of anything (save birds) on the 
same day that it was killed ? Have you pointed your knife 
at any one ? Did you know your wife on the Day of Rest 
(Nsana, Sunday) ? Have you looked upon a woman during 
a certain period of the month ? Have you eaten those long 
4 chilli ' peppers instead of confining yourself to the smaller 
kinds ? 

" You must send those who have not the bracelet, together 
with those who have not been true to ngofu, back to 
town, to set this ' palaver ' right. Take great care of your 
fowls, and see that you have no ill-regulated cock to crow 
between 6 p. m. and 3 A. m., as that means that there is a 
palaver in town to which your men are called, so that it 
may be settled at once. 

" Then, there is that large bird Knakna, whose cry warns 
your men that there is something wrong with the fetich Mabili 
( 4 the east wind,' on the gateway at the east entrance to each 
town), and this knowledge will hang as a dead weight on all 
their energies until they have just run back to town to see 
what the matter may be. 

" Get your men to sleep early, lest they should see the 
'falling stars ' ; for it means that one of their princes is about 
to die, and that is disquieting. Then don't let it thunder 
out of season; for that portends the death of an important 
prince. 

" And if you determine to go out fishing, and meet the rat 
Benda (as above noted), go or not, as the signs command 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 197 

you. If you meet the bird Mbixi that sings 'luelo-elo-elo,' 
go on your way rejoicing; or when the little bird Nxexi, 
true to nature, sings 'xixexi,' all is well; but when it sings, 
4 tietie, ' go back, for you will catch nothing. 

" Then there is the wild dog Mbulu ; well, that must not 
cross your path at starting. You laugh? Well, so did 
N}'ambi, the brother of my headman, Bayona ; and what hap- 
pened ? Nyambi had come down from the interior with his 
master; and after a short stay was ordered back to his trad- 
ing post, his master saying that he would follow him shortly. 
A friend handed him a son of his for him to educate, and to 
attend upon him; in fact, to be his 'boy.' Everything being 
ready, he set out from Loango ; and the first thing they met 
on the road was the wild dog. Now Nyambi was a plucky 
Bantu and took no notice of this warning, but continued on 
his way. On reaching the forest country in Mayomba, the 
boy entrusted to him ran away. Nyambi, true to his trust, 
came after him back to his town, to see that the boy was once 
more placed in the care of his father, and so to avoid any 
further complications. Then he once more started on his way, 
and, nearing the forest country again, was bitten severely on 
the foot by a snake. He tied a rag around his leg just under 
the knee, and another just above his ankle, and squeezed 
as much blood as he could from the wound itself. Then he 
hobbled into the nearest town, and waited there for assistance 
from his family, to whom he had at once despatched a mes- 
senger. They sent men and women to bring him back to 
Loango, where he arrived in a very weak condition, and with 
a fearful sore on his foot, — an awful warning to all those 
who will not take the omens sent to them in earnest! What! 
you still laugh ? Well, there is no hope for you ; you are too 
persistent, and have not read the story of the rabbit and the 
antelope, and of the trap laid for the former. 1 And if you 
keep on laughing at these superstitions of the natives, don't 
blame any one if they call you a 'rabbit,' and refuse to follow 
you in your wanderings through their land. Most haste is 

i Tale 23, p. 93, my " Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Fjort." 



198 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

very often worst speed in Africa; and the white man who 
ignores all but physical difficulties does well to stay his im- 
patient hand when about to strike his most provoking and 
apparently dilatory black carrier, who is beset by endless 
moral obstacles retarding his progress as no physical diffi- 
culties can." 

When I was beginning my pioneering of the Ogowe River 
in September-November, 1874, I had with me one Christian 
coast native. I completed my canoe's crew with four heathen 
Galwa, placed myself under the patronage of the Akele chief 
Kasa, resided in his village, and bought from him a site, 
Belambila, for my mission station, about a mile distant from 
him. Daily I went with my crew in the canoe to work at the 
building of a temporary house on the Belambila premises. 
One day a water-snake crossed the canoe's bow, and I struck 
at it. The Christian looked serious, and the four heathen 
laid down their paddles. It was sufficiently disastrous that 
the snake had crossed our path ; I had made matters worse by 
attempting to injure it. They said, " You should not have 
done that." "Why?" "Because somewhere and sometime 
it will follow us and will bite us. Let us go back to Kasa's." 
I refused, and insisted on our proceeding with the day's work. 
I might better have yielded to their request. It was as if I 
were under an Ancient Mariner's curse. My snake was as 
bad as his albatross. My men either could not or would not. 
Everything went wrong. They worked without heart and 
under dread. What they built that day was done with so 
many mistakes that I had to tear it down. I did not fully 
appreciate at that time, but I do not now think that they 
were intentionally disobedient or recalcitrant. Just as well 
compel a crew of ignorant sailors to start their voyage on a 
Friday. The fear of ominous birds and other animals is 
over all Africa. In Garenganze, according to Arnot, "many 
have a superstitious dread of the horned night-owl. Its cry 
is considered an evil omen, which can only be counteracted 
effectually by possessing a whistle made out of the windpipe 
of the same kind of bird. 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 199 

"Jackals, wild dogs, also are very much disliked. The 
weird cry of one of these animals will arouse the people of a 
whole village, who will rush out and call upon the spirit- 
possessed animal to be quiet and leave them, or to come into 
the village, and they will feed and satisfy it. 

" When travelling, they are careful to notice the direction 
this animal may take. Should its cry come from the direc- 
tion in which they are going, they will not venture a step 
farther until certain divinations have been performed that 
they may learn the nature of the calamity about to befall 
them." 1 

The chameleon is an object of dread to all natives wherever 
I have lived. I have never met, even among the most civ- 
ilized, any man or woman who would touch one. For friend- 
ship, or to make a sale, they would bring it to me at the 
end of a long stick, in my various efforts at zoological and 
other collections. 

The millepedes they also dread. I handle them with im- 
punity, and my little daughter, on the Ogowe, in 1888 did 
so too, under my example. But her young Negro com- 
panions soon made her afraid. True, the adult millepede 
ejects a dark liquid which stained my hands and which 
natives said was poisonous if taken internally. (That I 
never tested.) 

A native friend, one of my Batanga female church-mem- 
bers, a sincere Christian, of bright mind but limited educa- 
tion, told me recently (1902) of her belief in the chameleon 
as a bad omen. She was visiting relatives a dozen miles 
north. Word was sent her to return, as another relative, a 
woman in my Bongaheli village, was dangerously ill. Her 
host told her to go, and advised her to gather on the way 
a certain fern, parasitic on trees, that is used medicinally 
in the disease of which the woman was sick. My friend 
started on her day's journey, came to the tree, and was about 
to pluck the ferns when she observed a chameleon clasping 
the tree; it stood still and looked at her. She instantly 

T- Arnot. 



200 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

left the tree, abandoned the ferns, went back to tell her host 
that a chameleon was in possession of them and had stared 
at her, and that it was useless to gather the medicine, for she 
was sure their relative was dead. And she resumed her 
journe}^ coming back to Bongaheli in order to attend the 
mourning. It was true; the relative was dead, and the 
mourning had begun. Her belief was not shaken when I 
reminded her that that chameleon was only doing just what 
all chameleons do when they are not walking, and when con- 
fronted by any one. They all clasp the branch on which they 
happen to be, and stare at their supposed pursuer, if unable 
to escape. 

Leopard Fiends. 

Formerly a strange superstition said that on him who 
should kill a leopard there would come an evil disease, cura- 
ble only by ruinously expensive ceremonies of three weeks' 
duration, under the direction of the Ukuku (Spirit) Society. 
So the natives allowed the greatest ravages, until their sheep, 
goats, and dogs were swept away ; and were aroused to self- 
defence only when a human being became the victim of the 
daring beast. The carcass of a leopard, or even the bones of 
one long dead, were not to be touched. 

While I was living at Benita, about 1869, the losses by 
leopards became so great that, in desperation, some of the 
braver young men, under my encouragement, determined 
that the depredator should be caught. (Nothing was just 
then said about what should be done with it when caught.) 
A trap was built in one of the villages, and baited with a 
live goat. Soon a leopard was entrapped. What to do with 
it was then the question. Some favored leaving it alone till 
they could ask permission of Ukuku to kill it, even if they 
had to pay heavily for the permission. Others, who had 
heard me laugh at their superstition, proposed that I should 
be asked to shoot it. They came at night; I willingly and 
promptly went with my Winchester repeating rifle, which 
could easily be thrust into the chinks between the logs of 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 201 

which the trap was built. When the animal was shot, came 
the question, Who should remove it? None would touch it. 
Among my employees were two young men of another tribe 
with whom that superstition did not exist. With their aid 
I lifted the carcass upon a wheelbarrow, and took it to a 
place where I could comfortably skin it. Some objected to my 
retaining the skin. They wanted the whole animal put out 
of sight. But the majority agreed that the skin should be 
my compensation for my rifle's service. Then a deputation 
carefully followed me out on the prairie, to see that the 
spot where the skinning was to be done was not near any of 
their frequented paths. After the flaying was complete, what 
was best to do with the carcass ? The majority objected to 
its being buried, fearing to tread over its grave. So I sent 
the two young men in a canoe, to sink the carcass out in the 
river's mouth toward the sea. Even then there were those 
who for two weeks afterward would eat no fish caught in 
the river. 

With this fear of the leopard was united a superstition 
similar to that of the u wehr-wolf " of Germany, viz., a belief 
in the power of human metamorphosis into a leopard. The 
natives had learned, from foreigners who were ignorant of 
the fact that there are no tigers in Africa, to call this leopard 
fiend a "man-tiger." They got their fears still more mixed 
by a belief in a third superstition, viz., that sometimes the 
dead returned to life and committed depredations. This 
belief was not simply that disembodied spirits (mekuku) re- 
turned, but that the entire person, soul and body (ilina na 
nyolo), rose temporarily from the grave, with a few changes 
(among the rest, that the feet were webbed). Such a being, 
as mentioned in a previous chapter, was called "Uvengwa." 
At one time, while I was at Benito, intense excitement pre- 
vailed in the community: doors and shutters were violently 
rattled at night; marks of leopard's claws scratched door- 
posts; their tracks lay on every path; women and children 
in lonely places saw their flitting forms, in the dark were 
knocked down by their spring, or heard their growl in the 



202 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

thickets. It was difficult to decide, in hearing these reports, 
whether it was a real leopard, a leopard fiend, or only an 
uvengwa. To native fear, they were practically the same. 
I felt certain that the uvengwa was a thief disguised in a 
leopard skin. Under such disguise murders were sometimes 
committed. By bending my thumb and fingers into a semi- 
closed fist, I could make an impression in the sand that 
exactly resembled a leopard's track; and this confirmed my 
conclusions as to the real cause of the phenomenon. 

The pioneer of the Gabun Mission, Rev. Dr. J. L. 
Wilson,, in 1842, found the wehr-wolf superstition preva- 
lent among all the tribes of Southern Guinea. The leopard 
"is invested with more terror than it otherwise would have, 
by a superstitious apprehension on the part of the natives, 
that wicked men frequently metamorphose themselves into 
leopards and commit all sorts of depredations, without the 
liability or possibility of being killed. The real leopard is 
emboldened by impunity, and often becomes a terrible scourge 
to the village he infests. I have known large villages to be 
abandoned by their inhabitants, because they were afraid 
to attack these animals on account of their supposed super- 
natural powers." 

At Gabun, about 1865, there still remained a jungle 
on one side of the public road that constituted the one 
street of the town of Libreville, as it followed the curve of 
the bay for three miles. There were frequent alarms and 
occasional murders along lonely parts of that road. The 
natives believed that the leopard fiend was a beast; the 
French commandant believed it was a human being. He 
had the jungle cut away. Since then, no mangled bodies 
have been found there. 

Among the Garenganze people, in 1884, Mr. Arnot often 
chid them " for their want of bravery in not hunting down 
the man}^ wild animals that prey around their towns, carry- 
ing off the sick people, and frequently attacking and seizing 
solitary strangers. They excused themselves by explaining 
that these wild animals are really 4 men of other tribes,' 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 203 

turned, by the magic power they possess, into the form of 
lions, panthers, or leopards, who prowl about to take ven- 
geance on those against whom they are embittered. In de- 
fending this absurd theory, one man said it was not possible 
for a Luba and a Lamba man to go out into the country 
together without one stealing a march on his neighbor, get- 
ting out of sight, and returning again in the form of a lion 
or leopard, and devouring his travelling companion. Such 
things, they say, are of daily occurrence amongst them ; and 
this foolish superstition leads them not only to tolerate the 
wild animals about, but almost to hold them sacred." 

This particular superstition still exists extensively. As 
late as 1898, it is stated of the Barotse of Southeast Africa: 
" They believe that at times both living and dead persons can 
change themselves into animals, either to execute some ven- 
geance or to procure something that they wish for: thus a 
man will change himself into a hyena or a lion in order to 
steal a sheep, and make a good meal off it; into a serpent, to 
avenge himself on some enemy. At other times, if they see 
a serpent, it is one of the ' Matotela ' or slave tribe, which 
has thus transformed himself to take some vengeance on the 
Barotse." 1 

Luck. 

There exists a custom, even among the civilized, for the 
seller of an article to hold back a small portion after his 
price has been paid. When I first met with this custom, I 
was indignant at what seemed like stealing ; and yet it was 
so open, and without any attempt at concealment, that I was 
amazed. One who brought for sale a bunch of plantains 
twisted off and took away one of its "fingers." Another 
who had just been paid for a peck of sweet potatoes deliber- 
ately picks off one tuber. Another who brought a gazelle 
for sale would not complete the bargain till I had consented 
that he might remove the gall-bladder and a portion of the 
liver. I learned that all these were for "luck": in order 
that the garden whence came that plantain bunch or potato 

1 Decle. 



204 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

should be blessed with abundance; and the hunter, that he 
might be successful in his next hunt. The gazelle is credited 
with being a very artful animal, the cunning being located 
especially in the liver. 

One might ask why, if those pieces are so needed for luck, 
the owner did not take them before selling, and while they 
were still his own and under his entire control. I do not 
know their exact thought; but the statement was that the 
chances of good luck were greater if the pieces of plantain, 
potato, meat, etc. were abstracted after the article had ac- 
tually passed out of the seller's possession. 

On the Ogowe, at Lake Azyingo, in 1874, I was present 
at the cutting up of a female hippopotamus which a hunter 
had killed the night before. By favor of the native Ajumba 
chief, Anege, I was allowed to see the ceremonies. They 
were many; of most of them I did not understand the sig- 
nificance ; and the people were loath to tell me, lest I should 
in some way counteract them. Even my presence was ob- 
jected to by the mother of the hunter (he, however, was 
willing). 

After the animal had been decapitated, and its quarters 
and bowels removed, the hunter, naked, stepped into the 
hollow of the ribs, and kneeling in the bloody pool contained 
in that hollow, bathed his entire body with that mixture of 
blood and excreta, at the same time praying the life-spirit of 
the hippo that it would bear him no ill-will for having killed 
it, and thus cut it off from future maternity; and not to 
incense other hippopotami that they should attack his canoe 
in revenge. (Hippos are amphibians, but are generally killed 
in the water.) He kept choice parts of the flesh to incor- 
porate into his luck fetich. 

Mr. Arnot mentions the same custom in Garenganze: 
" One morning I shot a hyena in my yard. The chief sent 
up one of his executioners to cut off its nose and the tip of 
its tail, and to extract a little bit of brain from the skull. 
The man informed me that these parts are very serviceable 
to elephant hunters, as securing for them the cunning, tact, 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 205 

and power to become invisible, which the hyena is supposed 
to possess. I suppose that the brain would represent the 
cunning, the nose the tact, and the tip of the tail the van- 
ishing quality." The stomach of the hyena is valued by 
the Ovimbundu (of Southwest Africa) as a cure for apoplexy. 

Twins. 

Mr. Arnot states that in Garenganze " cases of infanticide 
are very rare. Twins, strange to say, are not only allowed 
to live, but the people delight in them." Though they are 
not regarded as monstrosities deserving death, as among the 
Calabar people on the West Coast, it is nevertheless con- 
sidered necessary that certain preservative ceremonies should 
be performed on the infants and their parents. 

Mr. Swan, an associate of Mr. Arnot, describes a cere- 
mony he was unexpectedly made to share in while on a 
visit to the native king Msidi: "My attention was drawn 
to a crowd of folk, mostly women, who approached, singing 
and ringing a kind of bell. They formed in lines opposite 
to us. In front of the rest were a man and woman, each 
holding a child not more than a few days old. I learned 
that the little ones were twins, the man and woman holding 
them being the happy parents, who had come to present their 
offspring to the king. They wore nothing but a few leaves 
about their loins, — a hint to Msidi, I suppose, that they 
would like some cloth. 

" After chanting a little, an elderly woman came forward, 
with a dish in her left hand and an antelope's tail in her 
right. When she reached Msidi, I was astonished at her 
dipping the tail in the dish and dashing the liquid over his 
face. Msidi 's wife had a like dose. But my surprise in- 
creased when she came to us and gave us a share. What 
was in the dish I cannot say, but it struck me as possessing 
a very disagreeable odor. This discourteous creature was 
the Ocimbanda (fetich doctor). She did not cease her dous- 
ing work till she had favored all sitting around. The king 
then went into the house, and his wife came out with some 



206 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

cloth, which she tied around the mother's waist; and then a 
piece of cloth was given to the husband. The friends had 
brought some native beer; and when Msidi came out, he 
went to one of the pots, filled his mouth, spouting the beer 
in his wife's face; she did the same to him, after which the 
spouting became general. . . . They told me it was their 
custom to act thus when twins are born." 

In the Benga tribe, thirty-five years ago, I observed that if 
one of a pair of twins died, a wooden image was substituted 
for it on the bed or in the cradle-box, alongside of the living 
child. I strongly suspected Animism in the custom; but 
some Christians explained that the image was only a toy, so 
that the living babe should not miss the presence of an object 
resembling its mate. 

Names of twins are always the same, in the same cog- 
nate tribes. In Benga they are always Ivaha (a wish) and 
Ayenwe' (unseen). These names are given irrespective of 
sex. But not every man or woman whom one 'may meet 
with these names is necessarily a twin. They may have 
inherited the name from ancestors who were twins. 

All over Africa the birth of twins is a notable event, but 
noted for very different reasons in different parts of the 
country. In Calabar they are dreaded as an evil omen, and 
until recently were immediately put to death, and the mother 
driven from the village to live alone in the forest as a pun- 
ishment for having brought this evil on her people. 

In other parts, as in the Gabun country, where they are 
welcomed, it is nevertheless considered necessary to have 
special ceremonies performed for the safety of their lives, 
or, if they die, to prevent further evil. 

In the Egba tribes of the Yoruba country they become 
objects of worship. As in other parts of Africa where twins 
are preserved, they are given twin names ; which, of course, 
differ in different languages. Among the Egbas the first- 
born is Taiwo, i. «., " the first to taste the world," and the 
other Kehende, i.e., " the one who comes last." 1 About eight 

1 See " Niger and Yoruba Notes." 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 207 

days after their birth, or as soon as the parents have the 
money for the sacrificial feast, they invite all relatives on 
both sides, neighbors and friends together. Various kinds of 
food are prepared, consisting chiefly of beans and yams. A 
little of each kind of food is set apart with some palm-oil 
thrown upon it, and the small native plates or basins contain- 
ing it are set before the children in their cradle. They are 
then invoked to protect their mother from sickness, to pity 
their parents and remain with them, to watch over them at 
all times. I quote in this connection the following from a 
West African newspaper: 

" After the ceremony an elderly man or woman who has 
been a twin is called upon to split the kola nuts, in order 
to find out whether the children will live or die. This is 
their way of asking the god or goddess to answer their re- 
quests (and it is singular that this throwing of kolas may be 
done repeatedly until the reply is favorable to the inquirer). 
Thus : if a kola nut is split into four parts in throwing 
it down, they say, " You Idol, please foretell if the children 
will live long or die." If all the four pieces of the kola 
fall flat on their backs, or all flat with their face*s to the 
ground, or if two of them fall with their faces downward 
and the other two upward, then in each of those cases the 
reply is favorable, and it means they will live long and not 
die. But if three pieces of the kola should turn their faces to 
the ground and only one fall flat on its back, or if the three 
pieces should turn their faces upward and only one downward, 
the reply is unfavorable, and it means that the children will 
die before long. In such cases they continue throwing the 
kola nut indefinitely until they obtain their wish ; or, in rare 
cases of total failure, the subject of inquiry is reserved till a 
future time, when they hope the idol may speak more favorably. 
Thus, twin children are worshipped every month. 

"In some cases, where the parents have the means, an in- 
vitation goes round to as many twins as they can get to par- 
take of the sacrificial feasts. Of course, the people enjoy 
themselves at the feast. 



208 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

" The twins have everything in common ; they eat the same 
kind of food and wear the same dress. If one of them should 
die, the mother is bound to make a wooden image to repre- 
sent the dead child. This kind of image is generally about a 
foot in length, and is made of Ire wood, which is flexible and 
durable. It is carved in such a manner as to represent the 
human anatomy." 

These images, substitute for a dead twin, are used very 
extensively among all the tribes of Africa. Various reasons 
are given for their use : that the surviving twin shall not be 
lonely ; that the departed one may be sure it is not forgotten ; 
and other reasons. The images are retained as family fetiches, 
to ward off evil from the mother. 

" If both children should die, the mother must have two 
wooden images, and regard them as her living children ; she 
worships them every morning by splitting kola nuts and 
throwing down a few drops of palm-oil before them. Of 
course, the occasional feasts follow in their due course, and 
as oftentimes as she may happen to see them in her dreams. 

" If they should live, and both are males, they make engage- 
ments and marry at the same time. If one is male, and the 
other is female, their dowry must be given the same day ; 
the parents believe that if things done for them are not alike 
or do not go together, one will soon die." * 

Customs of Speech. 

Superstition mingles in customs of speech. There is the 
custom of Kombo, existing to-day. Something about the act 
of sneezing is considered uncanny. A phrase or a cabalistic 
word, intended as an adjuration or a protestation in the nature 
of a prayer for protection or blessing, is very commonly ejacu- 
lated by one who sneezes and sometimes when one stumbles. 
(In the old despotic days of native kings, in the Benito region, 
if a king, on first emerging from his house in the morning, 
should happen to stumble, he would order the nearest person 
in sight to be killed.) That word is uttered by an adult for 

i From a West African newspaper. 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 209 

himself, by a parent or other relative for an infant child. It 
may be an archaism whose meaning has been forgotten. Gen- 
erally the Kombo is an epigrammatic phrase invented by the 
individual himself, and to be used only by him. 

Sometimes, instead of a phrase, the single word " Kombo ! " 
as representing the custom, is uttered. 

Some forty years ago the ejaculation, before the invariable 
" Mbolo " salutation was uttered, that was used by visitors to 
the Mpongwe king on the south side of the Gabun estuary, 
was, " What evil law has God made ? " The response was, 
"Death!" Little as the heathen natives liked to talk of 
death, their use of that word to their king was in the nature 
of a good wish that he might escape the universal law. And 
the " Mbolo ! " (gray hairs) that followed was a wish that he 
might live to have gray hairs. 

His son, an educated man and a nominal Romanist, is now 
saluted quite as formally, but the ejaculation has been changed 
to a more respectful and Christian recognition of God. 

Oaths. 

Blasphemy of the Divine name, so fearfully common in 
professedly Christian countries, is almost unknown to the 
African heathen. Though the native name for God, Any- 
ambe, is improperly used in names of persons (which is not 
intended for disrespect), it is not often actually blasphemed. 
An equivalent blasphemy, is occasionally practised in the mis- 
use of the name of their great and sacred spirit-society. In 
the Benga tribe " Saba ? " and " Sabali ? " used interroga- 
tively, mean only "True?" " Is that so?"; but, used posi- 
tively, they are of the nature of an oath, especially when 
the society's name (Ukuk) was added : " Saba n' Ukuku " 
(True ! by Ukuk !). 

On the Ogowe River, in the Galwa tribe, the name of that 
society was Isyoga, more commonly spoken of as Yasi. In 
the initiation into it the neophytes were taught a long and 
very solemn adjuration, that could be uttered only among the 
initiated, as an oath; but they were allowed commonly to 

14 



210 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

use simply its title " Yasi," the utterance of that one word 
being accompanied by a downward sweep of the right hand 
over the left arm from shoulder to hand. It was not per- 
mitted to women to speak this word. 

In no tribes with which I have lived was this " By-the- 
Spirit" oath used so much as among the Galwa of the 
Ogowe. It became monotonously frequent, in and out of 
season, in all conversations and on the slightest assertion 
or the simplest excitement. 

I became very tired of " Yasi ! Yasi ! Yasi ! " and that 
sweep of the right hand, for the doing of which the canoe 
paddle or a tool was laid down. And, by the way, the more 
of a liar a man was, the more frequent and vociferous was 
he in his persistent use of " By Yasi ! " 

Totem Worship. 

Totem worship is found in Africa, though nothing at all to 
the extent to which it existed among the Indian tribes of the 
United States, and especially Alaska. 

In Southern Africa it exists among the Bechuanas (who, 
however, are not pure Bantu) ; not in the form of carving 
and setting up poles in their villages, but in the respect which 
different clans give to certain animals, e. g., one clan being 
known as " buffalo-men," another as " lion-men," a third as 
" crocodile-men," and so forth. To each clan its totem 
animal is sacred, and they will not eat of its flesh. In some 
parts this sanctity is regarded as so great that actual prayer 
and sacrifice are made to it. But in most of the Bantu tribes 
this totem idea does not exist as a worship. Indeed, the 
animal (or part of an animal) is not sacred to an entire clan, 
but only to individuals, for whom it is chosen on some special 
occasion; and its use is prohibited only to that individual. 
Only in the sense that it may not be used for common pur- 
poses is it " sacred" or " holy " to him. 

Taboo. 

" Taboo" is a Polynesian term, and indicates that which man 
must not touch because it belongs to a deity. The god's land 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 211 

must not be trodden, the animal dedicated to the god must 
not be eaten, the chief who represents the god must not be 
lightly treated or spoken of. These are examples of taboo 
where the inviolable object or person belongs to a good god, 
and where the taboo corresponds exactly with the rule of holi- 
ness. But instances are still more numerous, among savages, 
of taboo attaching to an object because it is connected with a 
malignant power. The savage is surrounded on every side 
by such prohibitions; there is danger at every step that he 
may touch on what is forbidden to him, and draw down on 
himself unforeseen penalties." 2 

This idea exists very largely in the Gabun and Loango 
coasts : as described in a previous chapter, the custom is there 
called " orunda " ; e.g., such and such an animal (or part of an 
animal) is " orunda," or taboo, to such and such a person. 

The Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries to the King- 
dom of Kongo, more than two hundred and fifty years ago, 
found this custom "of interdicting to every person at their 
birth some one article of food, which they were not through 
life, upon any consideration, to put into their mouths. This 
practice was regarded [by those Roman Catholic priests] as 
specially heathenish, and was unconditionally " forbidden. 

Explanation may here be found why a church which two hun- 
dred years ago had baptized members by the hundreds of thou- 
sands, with large churches, fine cathedrals, schools, colleges, 
and political backing, and no other form of Christianity to com- 
pete with it, shows in Kongo to-day no results in the matters 
of civilization, education, morality, or pure religion. Its bap- 
tism was only an outward one, the heathen native gladly 
accepting it as a powerful charm. For each and all his 
heathen fetiches the priest simply substituted a Roman 
Catholic relic. The ignorant African, while he learned to 
bow to the Virgin, kept on worshipping also fetich. The 
Virgin was only just another fetich. The Roman Catholic 
priests were to him only another set of powerful fetich 
doctors. They commanded that, instead of the orunda, " the 

1 Menzies, History of Religion, p. 71. 



212 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

parents should enjoin their children to observe some particular 
devotion, such as to repeat many times a day the rosary or the 
crown, in honor of the Virgin ; to fast on Saturdays ; to eat 
no flesh on Wednesdays ; and such other things as are used 
among Christians." 

A similar substitution was made in the case of a supersti- 
tion of the Kongo country which exists universally among all 
African tribes to-day, viz., "to bind a cord of some kind 
around the body of every new-born infant, to which were 
fastened the bones and teeth of certain kinds of wild ani- 
mals." In place of this, the Roman Catholic records enjoin 
" that all mothers should make the cords with which they 
bound their infants, of palm-leaves that had been consecrated 
on Palm Sunday, and, moreover, guard them well with other 
such relics as we are accustomed to use at the time of 
baptism." 

Thus the heathen, in becoming a baptized " Christian," 
left behind him only the name of his fetich ceremonies. 
Some new and professedly more powerful ones were given 
him, which were called by Christian names, but which very 
much resembled what he had been using all his life. His 
"conversion" caused no jar to his old beliefs, nor change in 
its practice, except that the new fetich was worshipped in a 
cathedral and before a bedizened altar. 

Baptism. 

Forty years ago, on Corisco Island, I found the remains of 
a custom which resembled- baptism. 1 Before that time it 
was very prevalent in other parts of the Gabun country, 
whose people probably had derived it, like their circum- 
cision, from East Africa and from Jewish traditions. As 
described at that time, "a public crier announces the birth, 
and claims for the child a name and place among the living. 
Some one else, in a distant part of the village, acknowledges 
the fact, and promises, on the part of the people, that the 

1 See an illustration of it on p. 102 of my "Crowned in Palm-Land"; an 
infant is lying on a plantain leaf in the street. 



THE FETICH IN CUSTOMS 213 

new-born babe shall be received into the community, and 
have all the rights and immunities pertaining to the rest of 
the people. The population then assemble in the street, and 
the new-born babe is brought out and exposed to public view. 
A basin of water is provided, and the headman of the village 
or family sprinkles water upon it, giving it a name, and 
invoking a blessing upon it, such as, that it may have health, 
grow up to manhood or womanhood, have a numerous prog- 
eny, possess much riches, etc." 1 The circumcision of the 
child is performed some years later. 

Spitting. 

The same Benga word, " tuwaka," to spit, is one of the two 
words which mean also "to bless." In pronouncing a bless- 
ing there is a violent expulsion of breath, the hand or head of 
the one blessed being held so near the face of the one blessing 
that sometimes in the act spittle is actually expelled upon him. 

This blessing superstition exists among the Barotse of 
South Africa (whose dialect is remarkably like the Benga). 
" Relatives take leave of each other with elaborate ceremony. 
They spit upon each other's faces and heads, or, rather, 
pretend to do so, for they do not actually emit saliva. They 
also pick up blades of grass, spit upon them, and stick them 
about the beloved head. They also spit on the hands : all 
this is done to warn off evil spirits. Spittle also acts as a 
kind of taboo. When they do not want a thing touched, 
they spit on straws, and stick them all about the object." 2 

Notice of Children. 

Recently (1903), in passing through a street of Libreville, 
I saw several women sitting on the clay floor of the wide 
veranda of a house. In their arms or playing on the ground 
were a number of children. I was attracted by their gambols, 
and stopped on my way, and having saluted the mothers, I 
began to notice the children. The women knew me by sight, 

1 Wilson, Western Africa. 2 Decle. 



214 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

but I was a stranger to most of them. I thought they would 
be pleased by attention to their children. There were seven 
of them ; and I exclaimed, " Oh ! so many children ! " And 
I began counting them, " One, two, three, four — " But I 
was interrupted by a chorus from the mothers, of " No ! no ! 
no ! Stop ! That is not good ! The spirits will hear you tell- 
ing how many there are, and they will come and take some 
away!" They were quite vexed at me. But I could not 
understand why, if spirits can see, they would not know 
the number without hearing my count. Perhaps my enthu- 
siastic counting brought the number more obviously to the 
attention of the surrounding spirits. 



CHAPTER XIV 

FETICH— ITS RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE — 
CEREMONIES AT DEATHS AND FUNERALS 

WHEN a heathen Negro is sick, the first thing done, just 
as in civilized lands, is to call the "doctor," who is 
to find out what is the particular kind of spirit that, by 
invading the patient's body, has caused the sickness. 

This diagnosis is not made by an examination and comparison 
of the physical and mental symptoms, but by drum, dance, 
frenzied song, mirror, fumes of drugs, consultation of relics, 
and conversation with the spirit itself. Next, as also in civ- 
ilized lands, must be decided the ceremony particular to that 
spirit, and the vegetable and mineral substances supposed to 
be either pleasing or offensive to it. If all those cannot be 
obtained, the patient must die ; the assumption probably being 
that some unknown person is antagonizing the " doctor " with 
arts of sorcery. 

Fearing this, all the family relatives and friends come, hav- 
ing been informed by a messenger of the state of the case. 
They speak to and try to comfort the sick, as would be done 
in civilization. But to believers in fetich their coming means 
more than that. They have come from distant places as soon 
as the news had spread that their relative was seriously ill, 
without waiting for summons. Their coming is, indeed, a 
necessary mark of respect for the sick ; but it may happen, 
too, in case of the sick man's dying, that it would be a proof 
for them of their innocence if a charge should come up of 
witchcraft as the cause of death. The neglect to make this 
prompt visit of condolence would be resented by the sick 
should he recover, or, in case of his death, in the days when 
witchcraft arts were more common, would have been held as 



216 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

a proof that the absentee had purposely absented himself, 
under a sense of guilt. 

In the sick man's village there already has been a slight 
wailing the while that he is dying. Before life is extinct, and 
while yet the sick may still be conscious though speechless, a 
low wail of mourning is raised by the female relatives who 
have gathered in the room. 

These visitors have sat quietly in the sick-room while the 
patient was still conscious. To a foreigner that quiet is very 
strange in its oppressive silence and in the stolidity of faces 
(at other times expressive), whose very reason for being pres- 
ent is supposed to be the expression of sympathy. Only a 
few assist in the making of food or medicine for the patient, 
even when the medicines are not fetich. All the others are 
spectators, smoking, lounging, dozing, or, if conversing, speak- 
ing in a low tone. At the first report that death has actually 
come, the women break into a louder wail. 

But about a quarter of an hour is spent by some of the old 
members of the family, testing to see whether life is really 
extinct. When that fact is fully certified to the crowd in the 
street, the wailing breaks forth unrestrainedly from men, 
women, and children. The moment that death is declared, 
grief is demonstrated in screams, shrieks, yells, pitiful sup- 
plication, and extravagant praise by the entire village. 

Shortly after this first frantic outburst quiet is ordered, 
and the arrangements for burial begin. The body is bathed 
and the limbs are straightened. The stomach is squeezed so 
as to make the contents emerge from the mouth in order that 
decomposition may be delayed and the body kept as long as 
possible. The time will vary according to the necessity of 
the case and the social position of the dead. Usually the 
corpse is retained only one day ; but in case of a prominent 
person as many as five days, and in case of kings in some 
tribes, e. g. y of Loango, the rotting corpse, rolled in many 
pieces of matting, is retained for weeks. 

When the washing and vomiting have been done, the corpse 
is dressed in its finest clothing. The bed- frame is often en- 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 217 

larged so that many of the chief mourners may be able to sit 
on it. 

The body is generally taken from the bed and laid on a 
piece of matting on the floor. The chief female mourner is 
given the post of honor, to sit nearest to the dead, holding the 
head in her lap. 

During the time until the burial the women keep bending 
the joints of the corpse to prevent the body becoming stiff. 
The day before the burial (but if in haste, on the very day 
of the death) the coffin is made. During the making the 
mourning which had been resumed is again bidden to cease, 
in order that the spirit may be pleased with the wooden house 
that is being constructed for it. For the same reason the 
wailing is again intermitted while the grave is being dug. 
Those who are digging it must not be called off or interrupted 
in any wa}^ When begun, the job must be continued to 
completion. 

After the grave is completed, when they leave it and go to 
arrange the coffin, they must put into the excavation some 
article, e. g., a stick of wood, as a notice to any other wander- 
ing spirit not to occupy that grave. 

When all these preparations are complete, the corpse is 
laid in the coffin, and some goods of the deceased, such as 
pieces of cloth and other clothing, are stuffed into it for his 
use in the other world. If the deceased was addicted to 
smoking, a pipe and tobacco are laid in the coffin, or if 
accustomed to spirituous drink, some liquor is often placed 
there, either native palm-wine or foreign rum. 

Recently, while the Rev. F. S. Myongo, a native clergyman, 
was visiting on Corisco Island, he saw a mother put into a 
coffin a bundle of salt for her daughter to eat in the future 
world. 

If the deceased was a rich man, the people of his mother's 
side do not allow him to be buried without their first being 
given a part of his property by the people of the father's side. 

If there be a suspicion that he has been killed by witch- 
craft, and yet not enough proof to warrant a public charge 



218 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

and investigation, the relatives take amomum seeds (carda- 
mom), chew them, and pnt them into the month of the dead, 
as a sign that the spirit shall itself execnte vengeance on the 
murderer, and that the survivors will take no further steps. 
It is a nolle prosequi of a judicial case. 

All being ready, the lid of the coffin is nailed down, ex- 
cept in the case of a first-born only child, as has been stated. 

In former days, before coffins were used, the bamboo tatta 
of the bed-frame, the pandanus leaf mat, palm-fibre mosquito- 
net, and other bedding were all rolled about the corpse as it 
lay, and were buried with it. 

While the corpse is being arranged in the coffin, the women 
have resumed their wailing. The coffin is lifted by strong men 
and hurriedly taken to the grave, the locality of which varies in 
different tribes, — sometimes in the adjacent forest, sometimes 
in the kitchen-garden of plantains immediately in the rear 
of the village houses, sometimes under the clay floor of the 
dwelling-house. With the men who are carrying the coffin 
may go some women as witnesses. 

Formerly also slaves carried boxes of the dead man's goods, 
cloth, hardware, crockery, and so forth, to be laid by the body, 
which in those days was not interred, but was left on the top 
of the ground covered with branches and leaves. 

In carrying the coffin to the grave it must not be taken 
through the village street but by the rear of the houses, lest 
the village be " defiled. " As a result of such a defilement," 
all sorts of difficulties will arise, such as poor crops from the 
gardens and short supplies of fish. 

The coffin is laid with the face of the dead looking east- 
ward. During the interment people must not be moving 
about from place to place, but must remain at whatever spot 
they were when the coffin passed, until the burial is completed. 

The digging of the grave, the carrying of the coffin, and 
the closing of the grave are all done only by men. When 
these have finished the work of burial, they are in great fear, 
and are to run rapidly to their village, or to the nearest body 
of water, river or lake or sea. If in their running one should 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 219 

trip and fall, it is a sign that he will soon die. They plunge 
into the water as a means of " purification " from possible 
defilement. The object of this purification is not simply to 
cleanse the body, but to remove the presence or contact of the 
spirit of the dead man or of any other spirit of possible evil 
influence, lest they should have ill-luck in their fishing, hunt- 
ing, and other work. 

During the time of these burial and other ceremonies the 
women have refrained from their mourning. 

Women who have babes must not go along the route that 
was taken in the carrying of the coffin, lest their children 
shall become sick. 

When all parties have returned from the grave, the wailing 
is resumed. They all mark their faces with ashes, and then 
begins the regular official kwedi (mourning). During the 
continuance of this, pregnant women and mothers with 
young children are not allowed to come near lest evil happen 
to them. To prevent any possibility of the just-departed 
spirit injuring any children of the village, leaves of a common 
weed, kal&k&hi, are laid on their heads. 

The day after the funeral a decoction is made of the bark 
of a well-known tree, bolondo. With it the doctor sprinkles 
the people, their houses, their utensils and weapons, and the 
two entrances to the village. During the ceremony the 
people are shouting an ejaculatory prayer, " Goods ! Posses- 
sions ! Wealth ! Do not allow confusions to come to us ! " this 
is distinctly a petition that the spirit should bring to them 
goods or help them to obtain wealth ; " Let us have food ! " 
and many other similar cries for good things. What remains 
in the vessel of the decoction of bolondo bark after the gen- 
eral sprinkling is carried to the ends of the village street, 
and emptied there, as a prevention against the entry of evil 
spirits. 

Also there is made a mixture of scrapings of bolondo, pow- 
dered red-wood, and chalk. This is rubbed on the cheeks of 
the people to keep off the evil spirits. It is rubbed also, for 
that same purpose, on the walls of houses. 



220 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

The cutlass (machete) and native hoe that was used in the 
digging of the grave are washed with the bolondo decoction 
after having been left exposed to rain over night. 

Then one of the houses of the village is chosen as the 
ndabo ya kwedi (house of mourning). The mourners are to 
sit only in that house. If they should eat in any other house, 
the spirit of the dead would come and eat with them and would 
make them sick. During the days of kwedi the men go in 
the mornings to fish ; while they are away at the work, the 
weeping is intermitted lest in some way it spoil the fishing. 

The bedstead in the house of mourning must be constantly 
occupied, even during the daytime, by some persons sitting 
there, lest the spirit come to take any vacant space ; and the 
house itself must not, by day or night, be without some occu- 
pant. The near relatives, when one has occasion to go out of 
that house, must not go unaccompanied, lest the spirit follow 
them and attempt to resume earthly companionship and thus 
injure them. 

If it was a great man who has died, an occasional dance is 
held during the prescribed mourning time to please his spirit, 
which is supposed to be walking around and observing what 
is done. 

The kwedi formerly lasted a month, or, for a prominent 
person, a month and a half. 

People who while they were living were supposed to have 
witch power are believed to be able to rise in an altered 
form from their graves. To prevent one who is thus suspected 
from making trouble, survivors open the grave, cut off the 
head, and throw it into the sea, — or in the interior, where 
there is no great body of water, it is burned ; then a decoction 
of the bolondo bark is put into the grave. (The bolondo is a 
poison ; even a little of it may be fatal.) 

When affairs are going wrong in the villages, and the people 
do not know the cause, offerings of food and drink are taken 
to the grave to cause the spirit to cease disturbing them, and 
prayers are made to it that it may the rather bless them. 

If the deceased was a very important person, the kwedi is 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 221 

interrupted on the fifth day, for the selection of his successor as 
chief or king. This ceremony is called " ampenda " (glories). 
The successor is placed on the vacant seat or " throne " ; and 
songs are sung in his praise. B at first, a herald is sent to the 
forest, or wherever the burial was made, to call the dead to 
come and dispute his right to the throne, if he be not really 
dead. The herald stands and calls on the dead by name, " Such 
an one ! " This he does slowly once, twice, thrice, until five 
times. He returns, and reports to the waiting assembly, u He 
is really dead. I called five times, and he did not answer." 
Then, this herald, standing in the street before all the people, 
praises the dead for all his good deeds, and blames for some 
of his bad ones. He turns to the chosen successor sitting on 
the throne, and asks pardon for the candor he is about to ex- 
ercise : " To-morrow I will bow to you and take off my hat, 
but to-day I will tell the whole truth about you." Turning 
to the crowd, he says, " The man who is gone was good, and 
he has given us this new man. We hope that he too will be 
good. You all help me now to tell him his bad points." 
Then, addressing the new chief, he specifies, " You have a 
bad habit of so and so." And the crowd responds affirma- 
tively, " Bad ! cease it ! " After this, when the herald has 
ended his own list of rebukes, any one else may call him aside 
and tell him of any other evil of which he knows, and ask 
him to direct the new king to reform it. This ceremony was 
particularly observed by the Mpongwe-speaking tribes of the 
Gabun country. In the presence of the domination by for- 
eign governments, but little of it now exists there or in any 
other tribes to the north. 

In the improvised songs and ejaculations of the kwedi 
period the goodness and greatness of the dead are recounted. 
The praise is fulsome, exaggerated, and often preposterously 
untrue. Some declare their hopelessness of ever again seeing 
any joy. Supplications are shrieked by others for the departed 
to come back and reanimate the dead body. By most the 
wailing is a song in moans. Men tear their garments ; women 
dishevel their hair ; all take off their ornaments, and disfigure 



222 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

their faces with ashes or clay. The female relatives reduce 
their clothing to a minimum of decency. In all tribes formerly, 
and in some interior tribes still, the wives are made naked, 
and compelled to remain so for months, especially if they 
were known not to have been as submissive as is expected in 
the slavery of savage African marriage. 

During my early days in the Ogowe, about 1876, a native 
Akele chief, Kasa, who had been my patron at my first resi- 
dence in the Ogowe, Belambila, died after I had removed to 
my second station, Kangwe. I made a ceremonious visit of 
respect and condolence about a month after his death, for 
Kasa, though a heathen and often cruel, to me had been true 
and helpful. His family appreciated the compliment of my 
visit. I looked around the room, and missed his wives. I 
did not know that they had been divested of all clothing. I 
asked for them. A man hastened to go out and call them. 
I wondered somewhat at the delay in their coming. I was 
afterward told that though they were accustomed to the dis- 
grace of nakedness before native eyes, they did not wish to 
meet mine, for I had always treated them respectfully. A 
half-dozen of them sidled into the room, each carrying in their 
hands, as their only protection, a plate, and quickly huddled 
together in a corner of the room. I as quickly dismissed 
them, telling them I had not known of the rule under which 
they were living. 

In the Batanga interior, among the Bulu-Fang tribe, where 
women at all times wear scarcely any clothing, most widows 
are still required to go perfectly naked, sometimes for a whole 
year. 

All this wailing and mourning, while sincere on the part of 
some, is by most simply a yielding to the contagion of sym- 
pathy. By some it is a mere formality, and with many even 
a pretence. 

In the older days, before Christianity had obtained any in- 
fluence, or before foreign governments had exercised power 
to force away barbarous rites and compel civilized ones, when 
almost every death was regarded as due to the exercise of 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 223 

black art, and was always followed by a witchcraft investi- 
gation and by the putting to death of from one to ten so- 
called " witches " and " wizards " (in the case of kings, fifty 
to one hundred), no one, except the doctor and his secret 
councillors, knew on whom suspicion for the death might fall, 
and all were quick to be demonstrative in their grief, 
whether real or feigned, as a means of warding off the dreaded 
accusation against themselves. 

Though those witchcraft executions have ceased wherever 
foreign power exists, the wailing is still as demonstrative, 
either as a sign of real grief or as a mere custom ; and the 
mourning after burial continued for weeks (or even months) 
is an enormous evil. Wives and husbands abandoning their 
duties to their own villages ; children either slighted at 
their own homes or idly helping to swell the confusion at the 
town of mourning ; men neglecting their fishing, and women 
neglecting their gardens, — all these visitors are an expensive 
draft on the hospitality and resources of the town of kwedi, 
or on their other relatives who may happen to be living near. 
Inevitably there is not enough food for all, and they stanch 
their hunger by immoderate drinking of foreign alcoholic 
liquors. 

After the first paroxysms of grief, in a few days the mourn- 
ing is reduced to a perfunctory wail by the women for a short 
time each morning and evening. The remainder of the day 
is spent in idle talk, which always runs into quarrels; and 
the nights in dances, which generally end in dissolute revelry. 
A month of mourning lays up a list of assignations and in- 
trigues that result in trials for adultery and broken marriage 
relations. 

The feelings in the hearts of the mourners are very mixed. 
The outcry of affection, pleading with the dead to return to 
life, is sincere, the survivor desiring the return to life to 
be complete; but almost simultaneous with that cry comes 
a fear that the dead may indeed return, not as the accustomed 
embodied spirit, helpful and companionable, but as a dis- 
embodied spirit, invisible, estranged, perhaps inimical, and 



224 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

surrounded by an atmosphere of dread imparted by the un- 
known and the unseen. The many then ask, not that the 
departed may return, but that, if it be hovering near, it will 
go away entirely. 

Few were those who during the life of the departed had 
not on occasions had some quarrel with him, or had done him 
some injustice or other wrong, and their thought is, " His 
spirit will come back to avenge itself ! " So guns are fired to 
frighten away the spirit, and to cause it to go off to the far 
world of spirits, and not take up a residence in or near the 
town to haunt and injure the living. 

Nevertheless, the kwedi is kept up, if for nothing else than 
to satisfy the self-complacence of the dead. It is believed 
that the dead, sometimes dissatisfied with the extent or char- 
acter of the mourning ceremony, have returned and inflicted 
some sickness on the village, for the removal of which other 
ceremonies have to be performed. 

Thus far acts which are dictated by natural feelings, good 
and otherwise, have been dealt with; but there are a multi- 
tude of other ceremonies, varied in different tribes and never 
the same in any one tribe, which are performed under the 
direct influence of religious duty as well as superstitious fear. 
What has been thus far described is especially true of the 
Mpongwe, Benga, and Batanga tribes of western Equatorial 
Africa, typical for most Bantu tribes of the continent. The 
following quotations afford a comparison of the burial cus- 
toms of savages in other regions with those I have observed : 

Lumholtz, 1 describing the burial customs of Australia, writes: 
"The natives in the neighborhood of Portland Bay, in the 
southwestern part of South Australia, cremate their dead 
by placing the corpse in a hollow tree and setting fire to it. 
. . . The natives of Australia have this peculiarity, in com- 
mon with the savages of other countries, that they never utter 
the names of the dead, lest their spirits should hear the voices 
of the living and thus discover their whereabouts. There 
seems to be a widespread belief in the soul's existence inde- 

1 Among Cannibals, pp. 278-279. 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 225 

pendently of matter. On this point Eraser relates that the 
Kulie tribe (Victoria) believes that every man and animal 
has a muriep (ghost or spirit) which can pass into other 
bodies. A person's muriep may in his lifetime leave his 
body and visit other people in his dreams. After death the 
muriep is supposed to appear again, to visit the grave of its 
former possessor, to communicate with living persons in their 
dreams, to eat remnants of food lying near the camp, and to 
warm itself by the night fires. A similar belief has been ob- 
served among the blacks of Lower Guinea. On my travels 
I, too, found a widespread fear of the spirits of the dead, to 
which the imagination of the natives attributed all sorts of 
remarkable qualities. The greater the man was on earth, the 
more his departed spirit is feared. . . . An old warrior who 
has been a strong man and therefore much respected by his 
tribe, is, after his death, put on a platform made with forked 
sticks, cross-pieces, and a sheet or two of bark ; he is hoisted 
up amidst a pandemonium of noise, howling, and wailing, 
besides much cutting with tomahawks, and banging of heads 
with nolla-nollas. He is laid on his back with his knees up, 
like the females, and the grass is cleared away from under 
and around. The place is now for a long time carefully 
avoided, till he is quite shrivelled, whereupon his bones are 
taken away and put in a tree. 

" The common man is buried like a woman, only that logs 
are put over him, and his bones are not removed. Young 
children are put bodily into the trees. 

" The fact that the natives bestow any care on the bodies of 
the dead is doubtless owing to the fear of the spirits of the 
departed. In some places I have seen the legs drawn and 
tied fast to the bodies, in order to hinder the spirits of the 
dead, as it were, from getting out to frighten the living. 
Women and children, whose spirits are not feared, receive 
less attention and care after death. 

" In several tribes it is customary to bury the body where 
the person was born. I know of a case where a dying man 
was transported fifty miles in order to be buried in the place 

15 



226 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

of his nativity. It has even happened that the natives have 
begun digging outside a white man's kitchen door, because 
they wanted to bury an old man born there. In Central 
Queensland I saw many burial-places on hills. Such are also 
said to be found in New South Wales and in Victoria. These 
burial grounds have been in use for centuries, and are con- 
sidered sacred. 

" In South Australia and in Victoria the head is not buried 
with the body, for the skull is preserved and used as a drink- 
ing-cup. It is a common custom to place the dead between 
pieces of bark and grass on a scaffold, where they remain till 
they are decayed, and then the bones are buried in the ground. 

" In the northern part of Queensland I have heard people 
say that the natives have a custom of placing themselves 
under these scaffolds to let the fat drop on them, and that 
they believe that this puts them in possession of the strength 
of the dead man. 

" A kind of mummy dried by the aid of fire and smoke, is 
also found in Australia; male children are most frequently 
prepared in this manner. The corpse is then packed into a 
bundle, which is carried for some time by the mother. She 
has it with her constantly, and at night sleeps with it at her 
side. After about six months, when nothing but the bones 
remain, she buries it in the earth. Full-grown men are also 
sometimes carried in this manner, particularly the bodies of 
great warriors." 

W. H. Brown, in " On the South African Frontier," de- 
scribes a burial in Mashona-land : " When a member of the 
community dies, he or she, as the case may be, is usually 
buried under a shelf of rock in a reclining position, with 
arms folded and legs doubled up. In some districts, where 
heaps of rocks are scarce, I have seen graves made in 
large ant-heaps. As a rule, a small canopy or thatched roof 
is built over the grave, and under this it is common to see 
placed, as an offering, a pot of beer and a plate of sadza. 
The beer evaporates, and the ants eat the sadza ; but, to 
the Mashona mind, the disappearance is due to supernatural 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 227 

causes. At the burial the near relatives of the deceased 
cry aloud. I was camping one night near a village where 
a child died. The obsequies took place next morning be- 
tween dawn and sunrise. The mother cried loudly while 
the ceremony was proceeding, but her wailing ceased soon 
after the funeral, and there was no more noise made over 
it. I went into the village about two hours later, and 
saw some men, women, and children quietly sitting around 
the hut in which the death had taken place, and looking 
very solemn. The child was about two weeks old, and the 
cause of death was attributed by the Mashonas to the fact 
that the mother had not given beer to her grandfather when 
he wanted it at his death. 

" If a woman's husband dies, and she afterwards procures 
another, the new man takes up his abode in the hut of the 
dead one, becomes owner of his assegais and battle-axes, and 
assumes his name. Whether or not the second husband is 
supposed to enter into possession of the spirit of the deceased, 
I could not discover. Some Mashonas have told me that 
they believe that the spirits of their departed relatives enter 
the bodies of animals, particularly those of lions. 

" At the end of the lunar month during which a death has 
taken place, the surviving partner, man or woman, kills a 
goat, and its meat is cooked, as well as quantities of other 
food, and a large amount of Kaffir beer is brewed. The 
people gather from the neighboring kraals, and an all-night 
feast and dance ensue. 

" Monthly ' dead-relative dances,' which are called ' ma- 
chae' are very common; and if no one has been accommo- 
dating enough to die during the month, the feast and dance 
may be held in honor of some one who departed years 
before." 

A similar dance is held in the Gabun region of West 
Africa, partly as a consolatory amusement for the living, near 
the close of whatever prescribed time of mourning. It is 
called " Ukukwe " (for the spirit), as if for the gratification 
of the hovering spirit of the dead; but in many places in 



228 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

that region this dance has lost all reference to or for the 
dead, or even any connection with a time of mourning, and 
has become simply a common amusement. 

In the Bihe country of Southwest Africa, 1 " death is sur- 
rounded by many strange and absurd superstitions. It is 
considered essential that a man should die in his own country, 
if not in his own town. On the way to Bailundu, shortly 
after leaving Bihe territory, I met some men running at great 
speed, carrying a sick man tied to a pole, in order that he 
might die in his own country. I tried to stop them; but 
they were running, as fast as their burden would allow them, 
down a steep rocky hill. By the sick man's convulsive 
movements I could see that he was in great pain, perhaps 
in his death throes; hence the great haste. If a Bailundu 
man dies in Bihe, the Bihe people have to pay the Bailundu 
heavily for the shameful conduct of the Bihe demons in 
killing a stranger; and vice versa. 

" When a man dies at home, his body is placed on a rude 
table, and his friends meet for days round the corpse, drink- 
ing, eating, shouting, and singing, until the body begins 
actually to fall to pieces. Then the body is tied in a fagot 
of poles and carried on men's shoulders up and down some 
open space, followed by doctors and drummers. The doctors 
demand of the dead man the cause of his death, whether by 
poison or witchcraft; and if by the latter, who was the 
witch ? Most of the deaths I have known of in Negro-land 
were from pulmonary diseases, but all were set down to 
witchcraft. The jerking of the bier to and fro, causing the 
men bearing it to stumble hither and thither, is taken as the 
dead man's answer ; thus, as in the case of spirit-rapping at 
home, the reply is spelled out. The result of this enquiry is 
implicitly believed in ; and, if the case demands it, the witch 
is drowned." 

Among the Barotse of South Africa 2 ''funerals take place 
at night, and generally immediately after death, while the 

\ Arnot, Garenganze, p. 116. 

2 Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, pp. 74-79. 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 229 

body is still warm. If the person, when alive, possessed the 
skin of an animal, they wrap the body in it, and also in a 
plain mat, and then bury it near the hut. But death inspires 
them with a mortal terror, and thus the hut of the dead 
man is nearly always abandoned. Anything that has been 
used for the burial, such as the wood on which the corpse 
was carried, is left near the grave. It is the fashion to 
display great external signs of grief, howls and cries of 
lamentation and the like. Formerly the graves of chiefs 
were distinguished by elephant tusks turned toward the 
east. All cattle belonging to the deceased are killed ; and 
any animal of which he was particularly fond, such as the 
cow whose milk he drank, is killed first. They bury in the 
kraal itself those who died in the kraal; but whenever it is 
possible, the dying are taken out and laid in the fields or 
forest. There are two reasons for this : first, they think that 
away from other people is a better chance of the invalid 
making a recovery ; and, secondly, wherever the person dies 
he must be buried; therefore, if possible, far from their 
habitations. When a man dies, visits of condolence are paid 
to the relatives, the visitors bringing a calf or a head of cattle 
as a mark of sympathy, which is killed and eaten as a kind 
of consolation. The night after the funeral is passed in tears 
and cries. A few days later, the doctor comes and makes an 
incision on the forehead of each of the survivors, and fills 
it with medicine, in order to ward off contagion and the effect 
of the sorcery which caused the death. They place on their 
tombs some souvenir of the profession or vocation of the 
defunct; for example, — if he had been a hunter, horns or 
skins; if a chairmaker, a chair; and so on. Over the grave 
a sacred tree is planted. The tree is a kind of laurel called 
'morata.' ... A man will kill himself on the tomb of his 
chief; he thinks, as he passes near by, that he hears the dead 
man call him and bid him bring him water. These natives 
believe in transmigration of the soul into animals ; thus, the 
hippopotamus is believed to shelter the spirit of a chief. 
Nevertheless, they do not appear very clear that the soul can- 



230 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

not be in two places at once; else, if a chief has become a 
hippopotamus in the Zambesi, why should one slay one's self 
to bring water to his tomb ? " 

Perhaps Decle was not aware of a widespread belief in a 
dual soul, consisting of a "spirit," that, as far as known, 
lives forever in the world of spirits, and a "shadow" that 
for an uncertain length of time hovers around the mortal 
remains. Some, as already mentioned in a previous chapter, 
also name a third entity, the "life," — that which, being 
"eaten" by sorcerers, causes the living being to sicken, and 
which the sorcerer, if detected, can be compelled to return 
to its owner. Miss Kingsley thought also she had discov- 
ered a belief in a fourth entity, the "dream-soul." But 
this, though doubtless believed in as that which sometimes 
leaves the sleeping body and goes on distant wanderings, is 
the same as the " spirit, " during whose temporary absence the 
body continues its breathing and other physical motions, in 
virtue of the presence of its second and third soul-entities. 

The funeral practices of all the tribes, with very few ex- 
ceptions, over all Africa, however much they may and do 
vary, contain all of them, as shown by the preceding quota- 
tions, a decided belief in, and fear of, the intelligent and 
probably inimical activity of the spirits of their dead. They 
include also the custom of the burial with the dead man of 
more or less of his property, together with the destruction 
of such things as cannot be conveniently placed in the 
grave, — clothing, crockery, utensils, wives, slaves, trees of 
fruitage, etc. 

Even among the civilized and enlightened, while of 
course there would be no excessive destruction of property, 
nor murder of widow or slave, an extravagant amount of 
wearing apparel is stuffed into the coffin (which is some- 
times made large for that purpose) as a sign of the impor- 
tance of the dead, and of the sacrifice the love and grief of 
the living are willing to make. 

The residence of the transmigrated spirit is probably not a 
permanent one. The Wa-nya-mwesi of East Africa " believe 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 231 

in transmigration both during life and after it. Thus, ac- 
cording to them, a sorcerer can transform himself into a wild 
animal to injure his enemies; but in such cases the change 
is not permanent, and the soul does not remain in its new 
habitation." 1 

Leaving out of view the immense difference, caused by the 
absence of Christianity, in the moral life of native Africa, as 
compared with that of the United States, there is no one 
thing that more painfully strikes me, in the low civilization 
of the former, than their customs for the dead. It would 
occupy too much space to recount at length all the reasons 
the natives give for their sometimes apparently heartless 
ceremonies. The true explanation lies in their belief in 
witchcraft and their fear of spirits. 

From the testimony of travellers, burial customs are much 
the same all over Africa. What I have written is my per- 
sonal knowledge of what prevails on the West Coast, in the 
equatorial regions, and especially in the portion lying along 
the course of the Ogowe River, — a river that was first 
brought to public notice through the writings of Paul Du 
Chaillu, the journeys of a British trader, Mr. R. B. N. 
Walker, and subsequently by the thorough explorations of 
Count P. S. De Brazza. 

There are in Africa social distinctions of rich and poor, 
higher and lower classes, just as there are, and always will 
be, all the world over, the claims of communism to the 
contrary notwithstanding. These distinctions follow their 
subjects to the grave, — just as, in our own civilization, 
one is laid in the sculptured cemetery and another in the 
Potter's Field. 

The African burial-grounds are mostly in the forest, in the 
low-lying lands and tangled thickets along the sea-beach, or 
the banks of rivers. Hills and elevated building-sites are 
reserved for villages and plantations. If a traveller, in 
journeying along the main river of the country, observes 
long reaches of uncleared thickets, he will probably be 

i Decle. 



232 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

correct in suspecting that these are burial-grounds. His 
native crew will be slow to inform him of the fact or to 
converse on the subject, unless to object to an order to go 
ashore there. 

Some of the interior tribes bury all their dead under the 
clay floors of their houses. The living are thus actually 
treading and cooking their food over the graves of their 
relatives. 

This mode of burial is reserved as a distinction, in the case 
of some coast tribes, for a very few of their honored chiefs, 
or for a specially loved relative. 

Over or near the graves of the rich are built little huts, 
where are laid the common articles used by them in their 
life, — pieces of crockery, knives, sometimes a table, mirrors, 
and other goods obtained in "foreign trade. Once, in ascend- 
ing the Ogowe, I observed, tied to the branches of a large 
tree extending over the stream from the top of the bank, a 
wooden trade-chest, five pitchers and mugs, and several 
fathoms of calico prints. I was informed that the grave 
of a lately deceased chief was near, that these articles were 
signs of his wealth, and were intended as offerings to spirits 
to induce them to draw to the villages of his people the 
trade of passing merchant vessels. 

A noticeable fact about these gifts to the spirits is that, 
however great a thief a man ma}' be, he will not steal from 
a grave. The coveted mirror will lie there and waste in the 
rain, and the valuable garment will flap itself to rags in the 
wind, but human hands will not touch them. Sometimes 
the temptation to steal is removed by the donor fracturing 
the article before it is laid on the grave. 

Actual interment is generally given to all who in life were 
regarded as at all worthy of respect. Native implements for 
excavating being few and small, the making of a grave is 
quite a task; it is often, therefore, made no deeper than is 
actually sufficient for covering the corpse. This, according 
to the ^greatness of the dead or the wealth of the family, is 
variously encased, Sometimes it is placed in a coffin made 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 233 

of the ends of an old canoe ; or, more shapely, of boards cut 
from the canoe's bottom and sides; or, even so expensively 
as to use two trade-boxes, making one long one by knocking 
out an end from each and telescoping them. 

Sometimes the corpse is cast out on the surface of the 
ground, and perhaps a pile of stones or brushwood gathered 
over it. Sometimes it lies uncovered. Sometimes they are 
cast into the river. 

Many years ago, I was ascending the Ogowe River in my 
boat, painfully toiling against the current. I had unwisely 
refused the wish of my crew to stop for our mid-day meal at 
a desirable ulako (camping-ground), as the hour was too 
early; and I determined to go on, and stop at some other 
place. But I regretted presently; for, instead of finding 
forest and high camping-ground, we came to a long stretch 
of papyrus swamp; and, after that, to low jungle. We 
pulled on for another mile, the sun growing hotter, along 
the unsheltered bank, and we growing faint with hunger 
as the hour verged to noon. Becoming desperate, I di- 
rected the crew to stop at the very first spot that was solid 
enough for foothold, intending to eat our dry rice with- 
out fire. Presently we came to a clump of oil-palms. Their 
existence showed solid ground, and I seized the rudder and 
ran the boat ashore. The crew objected, hungry though 
they were, that "it was not a good place"; but they did 
not mention why. I jumped ashore, however, and ordered 
them to follow, and gather sticks for fire. As they were 
rather slow in so doing, and I overheard murmuring that 
"firewood is not gotten from palm trees" (which is true), 
I set them an example by starting off on a search myself. 

I had not gone far before I found a pile of brushwood, and, 
rejoicing at my success, I called out to the crew to come and 
carry it. While they were coming, I stooped down and laid 
hold of an eligible stick. But an odor startled me; and the 
other sticks that I had dislocated falling apart, there was 
revealed a human foot and shin, which, from the ornaments 
still remaining about the ankle, I suppose was a woman's. 



234 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

My attendants fled; and I re-embarked in the boat, suffi- 
ciently unconscious of hunger to await a late meal that was 
not cooked until we reached a comfortable village a short 
distance beyond. My crew then explained their slowness 
to obey me at that clump of palm trees, by saying that they 
knew it looked like a burying-place. 

A less respectful mode of burial (if, indeed, the term be 
not a misnomer) is applied to the poor, to the friendless 
aged who have wearied out the patience of relatives by a 
long sickness, and to those whose bodies are offensive by a 
leprous or otherwise ulcerous condition. Immediately that 
life seems extinct (and sometimes even before) the wasted 
frame is tied up in the mat on which it is lying, and, slung 
from a pole on the shoulders of two men, is flung out on 
the surface of the ground in the forest, to become the prey 
of wild beasts and the scavenger "driver" (Termes bellicosa) 
ants. 

Of one tribe in the upper course of the Ogowe, I was told, 
who, in their intense fear of ghosts, and their dread of the 
possible evil influence of the spirits of their own dead rela- 
tives, sometimes adopt a horrible plan for preventing their 
return. With a very material idea of a spirit, they seek to 
disable it by beating the corpse until every bone is broken. 
The mangled mass is hung in a bag at the foot of a tree in 
the forest. Thus mutilated, the spirit is supposed to be 
unable to return to the village, to entice into its fellowship 
of death any of the survivors. 

Some dead bodies are burned, particularly those of crim- 
inals. Persons convicted on a charge of witchcraft are 
"criminals," and are almost invariably killed. Sometimes 
they are beheaded. I have often had in my possession the 
curved knives with which this operation is performed. 

Sometimes torture is used: a common mode is to roast the 
condemned over a slow fire, which is made under a stout 
bed-frame built for the purpose. In such a case almost 
the entire body is reduced to ashes. When I was clearing 
a piece of ground at Belambila in the Ogowe in 1875, for the 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 235 

house which I afterward occupied, my workmen came on 
a pile of ashes, charcoal, and charred bones, where, they 
assured me, a criminal had been put to death. 

A barely mentionable method of disposal of the bodies of 
the dead is to eat them. That is possible only in a cannibal 
country. That it was actual was known among the Gabun 
Fang fifty years ago, and among my Ogowe Fang twenty- 
five years ago. None ate of their own dead ; adjacent towns 
exchanged corpses. Women were not allowed to partake. 
The practice was confined to the old men. One such was 
pointed out to me at Talaguga in 1882. He robbed graves 
for that purpose. 

Among the coast tribes of the Gabun region of West Africa 
cremation is not known, nor are corpses thrown out on the 
ground. Under the influence of foreign example, the dead 
are coffined, more or less elaborately, according to the ability 
of the family ; and the interment is made in graves of proper 
depth. In some of these tribes a locality of low, dark, 
tangled forest, not suitable as site for a village or for a 
plantation, is used as a public cemetery. 

Among the tribes of Batanga in the German Kamerun 
territory, though the people are civilized, the old unsanitary 
custom of burying in the kitchen-gardens immediately in the 
rear of the village, and sometimes actually in the clay floor 
of the dwelling itself, is still kept up, even by the more en- 
lightened natives. The Christians are not in numbers suffi- 
ciently large in any family to control all the burial ceremonies 
of its dead members. The strange spectacle is therefore pre- 
sented of a mixture of Christian ritual and fetich custom. In 
my own experience at funerals of some children of church- 
members at Batanga, the singing of hymns of faith and hope 
by the Christian relatives alternated with the howling of half- 
naked heathen death-dancers in an adjoining bouse. And 
when I had read the burial service to the point of beginning 
the march of the procession to the grave, perhaps only a few 
rods distant, the heathen remained behind ; and while I was 
reading the " dust to dust " at the grave-side, they would be 



236 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

building a quick fire of chips and dried leaves on the exact 
spot where the coffin had last stood in the village street. 
The ashes they would gather and incorporate into their fam- 
ily fetiches, to insure fertility to the mother and other near 
female relatives of the dead child. 

Also, in the Gabun region, there is the remains of a 
custom, practised especially by the Orungu tribe of Cape 
Lopez, of a pretended quarrel between two parties of 
mourners on a question whether or not the burial shall 
actually be made, even though there is no doubt that it 
will be, and the coffin is ready to be carried. This contest 
concluded, a second quarrel is raised on a question as to 
which of two sets of relatives, the maternal or the paternal, 
shall have the right to carry it. Very recently this actually 
occurred at the town of Libreville, and on the premises of 
the American Presbyterian Mission, the fight being shame- 
fully waged by young men who formerly had been profess- 
ing Christians. They had been given permission to bury a 
young man in our Protestant cemetery. The missionary in 
charge of the station heard a great hubbub on the path 
entering the mission grounds, as if a fight was in progress. 
Going to investigate, he found an angry contest was being 
carried on, under the old heathen idea that the spirit of 
the dead must see and be pleased by a demonstration of a 
professed desire to keep him with the living, and not to allow 
him to be put away from them. The contest of words had 
almost come to blows, and the victors had set up a disgrace- 
ful shout as they seized the coffin to bring it to the grave. 

Another custom remains in Gabun, — a pleasant one ; it 
may once have had fetich significance, but it has lost it now, 
so that Christians may properly retain it. Just before the 
close of the kwedi, friends (other than relatives) of the 
mourners will bring some gift, even a small one, make a 
few remarks appropriate to it and to the circumstances of 
the receiver, and give it to his or her mourning friend. It is 
called the "ceremony of lifting up," i. e., out of the literal 
ashes, and from the supposed depths of grief. For instance, if 




A Civilized Family. — Gabitn. 



RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 237 

the gift be a piece of soap, the speech of donation will be, " Sit 
no longer in the dust with begrimed face! Rise, and use 
the soap for your body! " Or if it be a piece of cloth, "Be 
no longer naked ! Rise, and clothe yourself with your usual 
dress!" Or if it be food, "Fast no longer in your grief! 
Rise, and strengthen your body with food!" 

As to the status of the departed in the spirit-world, 
though all those African tribes from old heathen days 
knew of the name of God, of His existence, and of some of 
His attributes, they did not know of the true way of escape 
from the evils of this present life, of any system of reward 
and punishment in the future life, nor of any of the condi- 
tions of that life. That they had a belief in a future world 
is evidenced by survivors taking to the graves of their dead, 
as has been described in the preceding pages, boxes of goods, 
native materials, foreign cloth, food, and (formerly) even 
wives and servants, for use in that other life to which they 
had gone. Whatever may have been supposed about the 
locality or occupations of that life, the dead were confidently 
believed to have carried with them all their human passions 
and feelings, and especially their resentments. Fear of those 
possible resentments dominated the living in all their attempts 
at spiritual communication with the dead. 

As to the locality of the latter, it was not believed that 
all of them always remained in that unknown other world. 
They could wander invisibly and intangibly. More than 
that, they could return bodily and resume this earthly life 
in other forms ; for belief in metempsychosis is a common one 
among all these tribes. The dead, some of them, return to 
be born again, either into their own family or into any other 
family, or even into a beast. 

Who thus return, or why they return, is entirely uncertain. 
Certainly not all are thus born again. Those who in this 
present life had been great or good or prominent or rich 
remain in the spirit-world, and constitute the special class 
of spirits called "awiri" (singular, " ombwiri "). 

But these awiri are at liberty to revisit the earth if they 



238 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

choose, taking a local habitation in some prominent natural 
object, or coming on call to aid in ceremonies for curing the 
sick. Other spirits, as explained in a previous chapter, are 
sinkinda, the souls of the common dead ; and ilaga, unknown 
spirits of other nations, or beings who have become "angels," 
all of these living in "Njambi's Town." 

As to Father Njambi Himself, the creator and overseer of 
all, both living and dead, every kind of spirit — ombwiri, 
nkinda, olaga, and all sorts of abambo — is under His control, 
but He does not often exercise it. 



CHAPTER XV 

FETICHISM— SOME OF ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 
Depopulation. 

ONE of the effects of witchcraft beliefs in Africa is the 
depopulation of that continent. Over enormous areas 
of the country the death rate has exceeded the birth rate. 
Much of Africa is desert — the Sahara of the north, and the 
Kalahari of the south — with estimated populations of only 
one to the square mile. Another large area is a wilderness 
covered by the great sub -equatorial forest, — a belt about 
three hundred miles wide and one thousand miles long, with 
an estimated population of only eighteen to the square mile 
(among whom are the Pygmy tribes); and these not scattered 
uniformly, but gathered chiefly on the banks of the water- 
courses, the only highways (except narrow footpaths) through 
that dismal forest. 

The entire population of Africa, including all nationalities, 
— Copts of Egypt, Moors and Berbers of the north, Arabs of 
the east, Abyssinians, Pygmies, and Cannibals of the centre, 
Negroes, both Bantu and Negroid, of the west, south, centre, 
and east, — probably do not number two hundred million. 
Of these, the Negroes probably do not amount to one hun- 
dred million. German authorities variously estimate the 
population of their Kamerun country at from two to five 
million, and they have been vigorously reducing it by their 
savage punitive expeditions in the interior. The French 
authorities of . the Kongo-Francais estimate theirs at from 
five to ten million. 

The population of the great Kongo River was much over- 
estimated after the opening of that river by Stanley. Its 
people were massed on the river banks, and gave an im- 



240 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

pression of density which subsequent interior travel has 
not verified. To walk slowly in an hour over a mile of road 
that constitutes the one street of a town ; to count the huts, 
and allot such or such a number to each, would give a suffi- 
ciently accurate census of one thousand or perhaps two thou- 
sand to that town. But that place is the centre of travel or 
traffic of that region. A half-day's journey on any radius 
from that town through the surrounding forest would con- 
front the traveller with scarcely any other evidences of human 
habitation. Towns of the thousands are not the usual sight; 
rather the villages of one hundred, and the hamlets of twenty, 
excepting in the Sudan, in the Yoruba and other countries 
of the Niger, and in the large capitals of Dahomey and other 
Guinea kingdoms. There walled cities of from fifty to one 
hundred thousand inhabitants are known. 

These congested districts help to lift the average that 
would be made low by the paucity in the wilderness and 
desert portions. Probably the population of the entire con- 
tinent was much greater two hundred years ago. Depopula- 
tion was hastened by the export slave-trade. Livingstone 
estimated that, on the East Coast, for every slave actually 
exported, nineteen others died on the way. The foreign 
slave-trade has long ceased, except from the Upper Nile 
down through Egypt and Arabia, and from the Sudan across 
the Sahara to Morocco. But far worse than Arab slave-trade 
are the diabolical atrocities, committed during the last fifteen 
years and actually at the present time, in the Kongo, under 
white officers of the miscalled "Free State," and with the 
knowledge and allowance of the King of Belgium. 

But, aside from all these and other civil and political 
causes, the fetich religion of Africa has been a large part 
of its destruction. It has been a Moloch, whose hunger 
for victims was never satisfied : as illustrated in the annual 
sacrifice of hundreds and thousands by the priests of the 
kings of Dahomey and Ashanti; and the burial victims at 
the funerals of great kings, as in Uganda and all over the 
continent. If the destruction of such human victims is not 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 241 

so great to-day as it was twenty years ago, due to enlighten- 
ment by Christian missions and forceful prohibition by civi- 
lized governments, the spirit of and disposition to destruction 
is not eradicated; it is only suppressed. It is so deep seated 
and ingrained as a part of religion, that it is among the very 
last of the shadows of heathenism to disappear after individ- 
uals or tribes are apparently civilized and enlightened. Under 
transforming influences the native has been lifted from dis- 
honesty to honesty, from untruth to truth, from immorality 
to virtue, from heathenism to Christianity; and yet there 
still clings to him, though he no longer worships the fetich, 
a belief in and fear of it. The presence of foreign govern- 
ments can and does prevent witchcraft murder for the 
dead; but if these governments were withdrawn from 
English Sierra Leone, French Kongo-Fran cais, and other 
partitions of Africa, the witchcraft ordeal and murder would 
be at once resumed. And no wonder. Inbred beliefs, 
deepened by millenniums of years of practice, are not elimi- 
nated by even a century of foreign teaching. Costume of 
body and fashion of dress are easily and voluntarily changed; 
not so the essence of one's being. 

Under the assurance that a consecrated charm can be made 
for the accomplishment of any purpose whatever, it results 
that almost every native African heathen, in hours of fear or 
anger or revenge, has made, or has had made, for himself 
amulets, or has performed rites intended to compass an 
injury to, and perhaps the death of, some other person. 
Should that other die, even as long a time as a year after- 
ward, it will be believed that that fetich amulet or act 
caused the death. 

It follows, therefore (although even heathen natives do, in 
rare cases, say of a death, "Yes, Anzam took this one," L e., 
that he died a natural death), that almost universally at any 
death which we would know as a natural one, surviving 
relatives and friends make the charge of witchcraft, and seek 
the witch or wizard, by investigation involving, in the trial, 
torture, or ordeal by poison, fire, or other tests. For every 

16 



242 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

natural death at least one, and often ten or more, have been 
executed under witchcraft accusation. 

I have pleaded for the lives of accused when I believed 
them innocent, and whenever I was informed that an in- 
vestigation was in progress, I said to the crowd assembled 
in the street, "When you kill these three people to-day, 
do I see three babies born to take their place in the num- 
ber of the inhabitants of your village ? " 

The Balengi on the Benita River, among whom I travelled 
in 1865-70, were then a large tribe. It is now very small, 
exterminated largely by witchcraft murders for the dead. 
The aged, defenceless, and slaves are generally selected as 
victims. But no one is secure. Relatives of a chief who 
during his life may have seemed envious of his power, are 
often suspected and put to death. 

For the determination of a doubtful cause of decease post- 
mortems are made, but not on any rational basis or with any 
knowledge of anatomy. In the autopsy of an ordinary person 
the object is to find among the bowels or other internal organs 
some sign which the doctor-priest may declare to be the path 
of the supposed sorcery-injected destroying spirit. In case 
of a magician, the object is to see whether his own " familiar " 
had " eaten " him. Cavities in the lungs are considered proof 
positive that one's own power has destroyed him. The 
fimbriated extremities of the fallopian tubes of a uterus are 
also declared to be "witch." Their ciliary motions on dis- 
section are regarded as a sign that the woman was a witch. 
In proof, the native doctor said to me, "See! those are the 
spirit-teeth. Don't you see how they move and extend in 
desire to catch and eat?" It was in vain that I declared 
to him that if that was true then every woman all over the 
world was a witch, and that he was bound to go ahead and 
kill them all ; for that God had made no woman without those 
things. (Was this " doctor's " idea the same reason for which 
the old anatomists called those fimbrise "morsus Diaboli"?) 

In Garenganze, among the Barotse, 1 "the trial for witch- 

1 Arnot, p. 76. 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 243 

craft is short and decisive. If one man suspects another of 
having bewitched him, — in fact, if he has a grudge against 
him, — he brings him before the council, and the ordeal of 
the boiling pot is resorted to. My proposal is that if they 
consider it a fair trial of ' whiteness ' or 4 blackness ' of 
heart, as they call it, then let both the accuser and the 
accused put their hands into the boiling water. The king 
is strongly in favor of this proposal, and would try any 
means to stop this fearful system of murder which is thin- 
ning out many of his best men ; but the nation is so strongly 
in favor of the practice that he can do nothing. An old 
friend of mine, Wizini, who took quite a fatherly care and 
interest in me, for some peculiar reason of his own, was 
charged with witchcraft. He pleaded earnestly to be spared 
the terrible trial, and was reprieved because of his years, but 
banished from his people and country for life, for no other 
reason than that a neighbor had an ill feeling against him. 
Had he been first to the king with his complaint, he might 
have gotten his neighbor burned or banished instead of him- 
self. . . . Their punishments are very cruel. Burning alive 
is, among the Barotse, a common occurrence ; also tying the 
victim hand and foot and laying him near a nest of large 
black (' driver ') ants, which in a few days pick his bones 
clean." 

But it is well to repeat my own qualification of most 
statements about " African " customs, which Arnot makes 
in connection with the above, that, "when manners and 
customs are referred to, the particular district must be 
borne in mind. Africa is an immense continent, and there 
is as much variety in the customs of the different tribes as 
in their languages. Certain tribes take delight in cruelty 
and bloodshed; others have a religious fear of shedding 
human blood, and treat aged people with every kindness, 
to secure their good-will after death. By other tribes the 
aged would be cast out as mere food for wild animals." 

The testimony of Decle a as to the tribes of South-Central 

1 Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 512. 



244 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Africa is: "You would suppose that the African expected 
everybody to live forever, since his one explanation of death 
is an immediate recourse to witchcraft. It is hardly an ex- 
aggeration to say that every natural death entails a violent 
one as its consequence. Along with witchcraft and the 
inevitable accusation of sorcery when one dies, goes the 
custom of 4 muavi,' the ordeal by poison. ... It is plain 
what complete domination this practice has got over the 
native mind. The reason is that he thoroughly believes in 
its efficiency. My own porters have constantly offered to 
submit to the ordeal on the most trivial charges. Of course, 
this thorough belief in ' muavi ' hands the native over com- 
pletely defenceless to the witch doctor. The doctor can 
get rid of anybody he likes to. Besides this, he is a kind 
of public prosecutor; that is to say, that when he accuses 
any man or woman of sorcery, he is not obliged, like any 
ordinary accuser, to take the poison himself." 

The " ordeal " or test of the innocence of a person accused 
of practising witchcraft or of having caused the death of any 
one (except in places where Christianity has attained power), 
is almost the same now as that described by Rev. Dr. J. L. 
Wilson, and subsequently by Du Chailln, as existing fifty 
years ago on the entire West Coast of Africa. On the Upper 
Guinea coasts it is called the "red water." "It is a decoc- 
tion made from the inner bark of a large forest tree of the 
mimosa family." At Calabar a bean was used, an extract of 
which since has been employed in our pharmacopoeia, in sur- 
gical operations of the eye. 

In the Gabun country the bark and leaves of a small tree 
called "akazya" are used. Farther south, in the Nkami 
(miswritten, " Camma ") country, it is called "mbunclu." 

The decoction itself is supposed to have almost sentience, 
— an ability to follow, in the various organs of the body, like 
a policeman, and detect and destroy the witch -spirit supposed 
to be lurking about. 

Accused persons sometimes even demand that they be 
given the ordeal. This an innocent person could fearlessly 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 245 

do, feeling sure of his innocence, and thinking, as any honest 
person in a civilized country charged with theft would feel, 
that it was perfectly safe to have his house searched, sure 
that no stolen article was secreted there. So here the ig- 
norant native is willing to take this poison, not looking on 
it as what we call "poison." 

People who knoY^ihat they have at times used witchcraft 
arts will naturally be unwilling to undergo the test; but if 
the charge is made after a death, an accused is compelled to 
drink. " If it nauseates and causes him to vomit freely, he 
suffers no injury, and is at once pronounced innocent. If, 
on the other hand, it causes vertigo, and he loses his self- 
control, it is regarded as evidence of guilt; and then all sorts 
of indignities and cruelties are practised on him. . . . On 
the other hand, if he escapes without injury his character is 
thoroughly purified, ... and he arraigns before the prin- 
cipal men of the town his accusers, who in their turn must 
submit to the same ordeal, or pay a large fine to the man 
whom they attempted to injure. . . . There is seldom any 
fairness in the administration of the ordeal. No particular 
quantity of the ' red water ' is prescribed." The doctor, by 
collusion and family favoritism, may make the decoction very 
weak ; or, influenced by public feeling inimical to the accused, 
he may compel him to swallow a fatal amount; or he may 
save his life by a subsequent emetic. 1 

Cannibalism. 

African cannibalism has been regarded as only a barbar- 
ism; but for many years I have strongly suspected that it 
had some connection with the Negro's religion. It may be 
a corollary of witchcraft. 

Decle' intimates the same : 2 "I do not mean such can- 
nibalism as that of certain Kongo tribes, or of the Solomon 
Islanders, who kill people to eat them, as we eat game. 
With such tribes I did not come in contact. But there is 
another form of cannibalism less generally known to Euro- 

l Wilson. 2 P. 513. 



246 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

peans, and perhaps even more grisly, which consists in 
digging up dead bodies to feast on their flesh. This prac- 
tice exists largely among the natives in the region of Lake 
Nyasa. 1 I know of a case in which the natives of a village 
in this region seized the opportunity of a white man's pres- 
ence to break into the hut of one of these reputed can- 
nibals, and found there a human le*. hanging from the 
rafters. This incident shows that cannibalism is practised; 
but also that it is not universal with the tribes among 
whom it is found, and is condemned by the public opinion 
of those who do not practise it. But public opinion in 
Africa is not a highly developed power. . . . The real 
public opinion is witchcraft. And, indeed, in the case of 
cannibalism, the real public opinion tends to shield the 
perpetrators, because they are reputed to be sorcerers of 
high quality." 

Rev. Dr. H. C. Trumbull, in his "Blood Covenant" 
(1893), while gathering testimony from all nations lo illus- 
trate his view of the universality of blood as representing 
life, and the heart as the seat of life, as a part of the religious 
rite of a covenant, comes incidentally on this same idea of 
cannibalism as having a religious significance, or at least, as 
I have expressed above, as a corollary of witchcraft. This 
will explain why the African cannibal, in conquering his 
enemy, also eats him; why the heart is especially desired in 
such feasts ; and why the body of any one of distinguished 
characteristics is prized for the cannibal feast. His strength 
or skill or bravery or power is to be absorbed along with his 
flesh. 

Trumbull 2 quotes from Reville, the representative com- 
parative religionist of France: "Here you will recognize 
the idea so widely spread in the two Americas, and indeed 
almost everywhere amongst uncivilized people (nor is it 
limited to the uncivilized), that the heart is the epitome, 

1 I know of its occurring on the Gabun and Ogowe rivers on the West 
Coast. — R. H. N. 

2 P. 107. 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 247 

so to speak, of the individual, — his soul in some sense, — 
so that to appropriate his heart is to appropriate his whole 
being." 

A constant charge against sorcerers in West African tribes 
is that they have made a person sick by stealing and eating 
the sick one's "heart," and that the invalid cannot recover 
till the " heart " is returned. 

Also, see Trumbull: 1 "The widespread popular supersti- 
tion of the Vampire and of the ghoul seems to be an out- 
growth of this universal belief that transfused blood is 
revivifying. The bloodless shades, leaving their graves at 
night, seek renewed life by drawing out the blood of those 
who sleep, taking the life of the living to supply temporary 
life to the dead. . . . An added force is given to all these 
illustrations of the universal belief that transferred blood 
has a vivifying power, by the conclusions of modern medical 
science concerning the possible benefits of blood-transfusion. 
The primitive belief seems to have had a sound basis in scien- 
tific fact." 

Histories of our American Indians are full of incidents 
showing how the heart of a captive who in dying had 
exhibited bravery in the endurance of torture, was promptly 
cut in pieces and eaten, to absorb his courage. 

"The Ashanti fetichmen of West Africa, apparently act- 
ing on a kindred thought, make a mixture of the hearts of 
enemies mingled with blood and consecrated herbs, for the 
vivifying of the conquerors." 

"In South Africa, among the Amampondo, one of the 
Kaffir tribes, it is customary for the chief, on his accession 
to authority, to be washed in the blood of a near relative, 
generally a brother, who is put to death on the occasion, and 
has his skull used as a receptacle for blood. " 2 

Secret Societies. 

Another outcome of witchcraft belief is the formation of 
secret societies, both male and female, of crushing power 

1 P. 115. 2 Trumbull, p. 129. 



248 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

and far-reaching influence, which, in one aspect of their 
influence, the governmental, were the only authority, before 
the intrusion of foreign powers, which could settle a fierce 
personal dispute or enforce intertribal peace. But their 
possibilities for good were overbalanced by their actualities 
of evil. 

Among these societies I have, in a previous chapter, men- 
tioned as governmental agencies the Egbo of the Niger Delta, 
Ukuku of the Corisco region, and Yasi of the Ogowe. There 
is also in the Gabun region of the equator, among the 
Shekani, Mwetyi; among the Bakele, Bweti; among the 
Mpongwe-speaking tribes, Inda and Njembe; and Ukuku 
and Malinda in the Batanga regions. 

A detailed account of the ceremonies of an initiation into 
Malinda is contained in Chapter XVI. 

In a previous chapter I have mentioned my own coining in 
contact with Ukuku and Yasi. 

All these societies had for their primary object the good 
one of government, for this purpose holding the fetich in 
terror; but the means used were so arbitrary, the influ- 
ences employed so oppressive, and the representations so 
false, that they almost all were evil. Most of them are 
now discontinued as a tribal power by the presence of 
foreign governments, the foreign power having actually 
come in conflict with some of them, as in the case of Eng- 
land recently with the Aro of Nigeria; or, where they still 
exist, they have degenerated to mere amusement, as Ukukwe, 
in Gabun ; or are kept up as a traditional fashion, as Njembe. 

But they all exist, as described by Rev. Dr. Wilson a 
generation ago, and are at this very present among the 
tribes of the interior, where foreign government is as yet 
only nominal. 

Mwetyi "is a great spirit, who is supposed to dwell in the 
bowels of the earth, "but comes to the surface of the ground 
at stated seasons, or when summoned on any special busi- 
ness. A large flat house of peculiar form is erected in the 
middle of the village for the temporary sojourn of this spirit. 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 249 

The house is always kept perfectly dark, and no one is per- 
mitted to enter it, except those who have been initiated into 
all the mysteries of the order, which includes, however, al- 
most the whole of the adult male population of the village. 
. . . When Mwetyi is about to retire from a village, the 
women, children, uninitiated lads, and any strangers who 
may be there at the time, are required to leave the village." 

"Inda is an association whose membership is confined to 
the adult male population. It is headed by a spirit of that 
name, who dwells in the woods, and appears only when sum- 
moned by some " unusual event, — at the death of a person 
connected with the order, at the birth of twins, or at the 
inauguration of some one into office. ... If a distinguished 
person dies, Inda affects great rage, and comes the follow- 
ing night with a large posse of men to seize the property of 
the villagers without discrimination. He is sure to lay hands 
on as many sheep and goats as are necessary to make a grand 
feast, and no man has any right to complain. . . . The in- 
stitution of Inda, like that of Mwetyi, is intended to keep 
the women, children, and slaves in subjection." 

" N jembe is a pretty fair counterpart of Inda, but there is 
no special spirit nor any particular person representing it." 
Its power resides in the society as a body, and rests on the 
threat of the employment of fetich medicines to injure 
recalcitrant persons. Only women are admitted to it. A 
very considerable fee is demanded for admission to member- 
ship. Formerly it was considered an honor to be allowed 
to be initiated; now, to perpetuate itself, it compels young 
women to enter it, especially if they have made derogatory 
remarks about Njembe. The initiation then becomes a kind 
of punishment. Strange to say, young women thus com- 
pelled to enter accept the' society, and become zealous to 
drag others in. The initiation occupies about two weeks, 
and is accompanied with harsh treatment. Njembe has no 
special meeting-house. They assemble in a cleared place in 
the centre of a jungle, where their doings are unseen by out- 
siders by night or day. Nothing is known of their rites, ex- 



250 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

cept that they dance in a nude state, and the songs of their 
dances are openly heard, and are often of the vilest character. 

" They pretend to detect thieves, to find out the secrets of 
their enemies," to direct women in pregnancy, and in other 
ways claim to be useful. 

" The object of the institution originally, no doubt, was to 
protect the females from harsh treatment on the part of their 
husbands." 

As a rule, the Mpongwe women say that every woman 
should be in the Njembe Society; so, at a certain age of a 
girl, they decide that she shall "go in." But she is not 
always put through all the ceremonies at once. She may be 
subjected to only a part of the initiation, the remainder to be 
performed at another time. 

The special occasion for an initiation may be perhaps be- 
cause the spirit of some recently dead member wants a new 
one to take her place ; or if any young woman has escaped 
being initiated during her youth or if she is charged with 
having spoken derisively of Njembe, she may be seized by 
force and compelled to go through the rite. 

The entire process so Beats down the will of the novices 
and terrorizes them, that even those who have been forced 
into it against their will, when they emerge at the close of 
the rite, most inviolably preserve its secrets, and express 
themselves as pleased. 

Just before the novices or "pupils " are to enter, they have 
to prepare a great deal of food, — as much as they can pos- 
sibly obtain of cassava, fish, and plantains. Two days are 
spent, before the ceremonies begin, in cooking this food. 
They make big bundles of nganda (gourd seed) pudding, 
others of ground-nuts and odika (oily kernel of the wild 
mango), pots of odika and fish boiled, boiled hard plantains, 
and ripe plantains beaten into rolls called "fufu." This food 
is to be eaten by them and the older members of the society 
the first night. 

Those older ones, as a part of the hazing which they 
always practise, deceive the new ones by advising them in 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 251 

advance: "Eat no supper this evening. Save up your ap- 
petite. All this food you have prepared is your own, and 
you will be satiated at the feast to-night. " This is said in 
order to play a hard joke on them. But sometimes a more 
tender-hearted relative will pity them, and will privately 
warn them to eat something, knowing that they will be up 
all night, and that the older members intend to seize and eat 
what these "pupils" had prepared for themselves, allowing 
the latter to be faint with hunger. 

That evening the society goes into the adjacent jungle, the 
spot selected including a small stream of water. There they 
clear a small space for their ceremonies. They dance all 
night, part of the time in this camp, and part of the time 
in the street of the town, but always going back to the camp 
at some early morning hour. 

On the second day they come to town, dance there a little 
while, and then go back to the forest. They beat constantly 
and monotonously, without time, a short straight stick on 
a somewhat crescent-shaped piece of board (orega) that is 
slightly concave on one side. It makes a clear but not a 
musical note; is heard quite far, and is the distinctive sign 
of the Njembe Society. No other persons own or will strike 
the orega music. 

In the part of the ceremonies that are public in the village 
street, a man is invited to assist by beating on a drum, a 
matter in which women here are not expert. This drum does 
not exclude the orega, several of which may be beaten at the 
same time ; at least one must be kept sounding during the 
whole two weeks by one or another of the candidates, or 
if these become exhausted, by some other member of the 
society. 

One of the first public preparations is the bending of a 
limber pole (ilala) as an arch, or two branches, their tops 
woven together, over the path entering the village. They 
are wreathed with lycopodium ferns, and at their bases 
are stuck a young, short, recently half -unfolded palm-leaf, 
painted with Njembe dots of white, red, and black. At the 



252 PETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

distance of a few hundred feet may be another ilala ; indeed, 
there may be several of them on the way to the camp. 

While dancing during the first few days, the society occu- 
pies itself with preparations, unknown to the public, for their 
"work" in the camp. Thither come older members from i 
afar, especially those related to the candidates. 

Certain women skilled in the Njembe dances and rules are 
called "teachers." The first step which an already initiated 
member takes to become a "teacher" is to find and intro- 
duce a new recruit, with whom she must again go through 
all the rites of initiation more severely than at her first ex- 
perience. She makes herself perfect in the lessons impressed 
on her by impressing them on the new pupil. The pro- 
spective "teacher" has thus to endure, in this second passage 
through the rites, all and more than is put on the novice. 
Little as is known of these rites, it is certain they are severe. 

In the singing, each song is known by its own descriptive 
motions. The motion mentioned is to be actually performed, i 
however difficult or immodest it may be. Generally the im-. 
modest portions are reserved for the seclusion of their camp; 
but the words sung at the camp can be heard at the village, 
so that all hear them, — men, women, and little children. 

One common public song has for its refrain, "Look at the 
sun"; while that- song is being danced, the candidate must 
gaze steadily at the hot sun, even if it be blinding.. Most of 
the "rules " (and the teacher may invent as many new ones 
as she chooses) are purposely hard in order to make the can- 
didate suffer, and as part of the process of breaking her will, 
and ensuring secrecy by a reign of terror. 

Also most of the nights the candidate (or several of them 
if there are a number) must spend hours in keeping a fire 
burning in some part of the forest. That fire, once started, 
must be kept burning day and night during the whole ., two 
weeks. A girl who in ordinary times would be afraid to 
go out into the forest alone at night, will, under the Njembe 
initiation, go out in storm and rain to see that the fire is 
not extinguished. Sometimes the teacher will lighten the 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 253 

task for her by accompanying her ; or some one, pitying, will 
help to gather the dead wood with which the fire is kept 
smouldering. 

There are also rules for the breaking of which there are 
fines, e. g., "When you are dancing in public during the in- 
itiation, do not laugh aloud." Another rule is that no salu- 
tation is to be given or received, nor the person or even the 
clothing of a visitor touched by a candidate. 

The teacher must be quick to imitate, in this her second 
"degree " or passage through the rites, the rapid motions of 
the skilled older one who is teaching her and her new 
recruit. 

In order to increase the severity, the pupil, though she may 
be already wearied, is required to repeat her dance before 
every newcomer or spectator. The teacher will start the 
beat of the orega and take a few steps of the dance, and 
then stop and rest comfortably, the tired pupil taking the 
orega and continuing the dance. 

If pupils are sulky or shy, their teacher and other older 
members will scold them : " Go on ! dance ! You may not 
stand or rest there! Go on! You! this girl with your awk- 
wardness ! Do you own the Njembe ? " Sometimes a pupil 
is sulky or stubborn, or, disheartened, begins to cry. No 
mercy is shown her. Others, in anxiously trying to follow 
motions, will make absurd mistakes, and bring down on them- 
selves the derision of the spectators. Some pupils really like 
the dancing, and endeavor to learn quickly. Such as these 
are praised : " This one knows, and she will some day be a 
teacher." 

It is expected that the relatives of the pupils will be pres- 
ent and encourage them with some little gifts. 
' It is remarkable how well the secrets of the society are 
kept. No one has ever been induced to reveal them. Those 
who have left the society and have become Christians do not 
tell. Foreigners have again and again tried to bribe, but in 
vain. Traders and others have tried to induce their native 
wives to reveal; but these women, obedient to any extent on 



254 FETICHISMIN WEST AFRICA 

all other matters, maintain a stubborn silence. Nothing is 
known outside of the society of their doings in their camp, 
except that they are all naked, lay aside all modesty, make 
personal examinations of each other's bodies, sing phallic 
songs, and indulge in the hardest, severest, and most violent 
insults and curses heaped up in assumed wrath as jokes 
on each other. It is really a school in which to learn the 
fine art of using insults and curses which will be utilized 
outside the society, upon other persons on occasions of real 
anger. No man can equal these women in their volubility 
and bitter tirades when really angry. It is Billingsgate in its 
glory. 

After keeping up the ceremonies for a number of days, the 
society chooses one for their "last." The day preceding it, 
they go out in procession with baskets, kettles, and basins, 
from village to village, still singing, the song being adapted 
for their errand of begging, and still beating the orega, 
to get offerings of food, or gifts of rum, tobacco, plates, 
and cloth. (In a civilized religious worship this would be 
the taking up of the collection.) At each village on their 
route any member of the society will direct one of the new 
pupils to dance, as an exhibition of her recently acquired 
ability. She does not hesitate, but asks, " Which dance ? " 
The teacher replies, " I will show you, ' ' and starting a few 
steps measured, she stops, and the designated pupil takes 
it up. 

During the initiation the pupils are required to go bare- 
footed ; and if they have been wearing dresses, the dresses 
are taken off and only a native cloth worn. But a slight 
concession has occasionally been made in favor of some mis- 
sion-school girls when forced into Njembe, who, accustomed 
to dresses, were allowed to wear them when walking in this 
public collecting procession. 

The night of the day on which they come back from this 
collecting of gifts is the "last night." Dancing is then done 
by all, both by the teachers and the pupils. 

It is not known who is leader. One is spoken of as the 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 255 

"Mother," but it is not known who she is. The chief teacher 
is seen whenever they come from their camp, and is known 
by the colored chalk markings different from others. 

The next morning, the morning of the "last day," all go 
out fishing, young and old, along the river or sea beach. This 
fishing is done among the muddy roots of the mangrove trees. 
They gather shell -fish of different kinds. But whatever they 
do or do not obtain, they do not return till each one has 
caught a small common snake which lives in holes at the 
mangrove roots. The sound of the orega (which is still con- 
stantly beaten) seems to act as a charm, and the snake 
emerges from its hole and is readily caught; or the hand is 
boldly thrust into the hole in search of the reptile. In start- 
ing out on this fishing the new members do not know that 
they are to handle snakes. They go as on a happy fishing 
excursion. Really, it is their final test. They are told to 
put their hands into these holes, and not to let go of the 
"fish" they shall seize there. The novice obeys, but pres- 
ently screams in alarm as she feels a snake-like form wriggling 
about her hand. Her teacher terribly threatens her; she begs 
to be excused, dares not let go, and is compelled to pull out 
the snake twining about her arm. They all then return to 
the camp, each with her snake in her basket. It is not 
known what is done with these snakes. 

The teacher is to be paid for her services. As the pupils 
come from different villages, each one has to ask her teacher's 
permission to go to her relatives to collect the fee. This is 
done a few days before the final day. They are allowed to 
go, but with an escort to watch them that they break no rule 
of the initiation. They do not go into the houses, nor do 
they speak. They stand in the street. Those who escort 
them have to do the talking, thus : " We have come to collect 
our money, as the Njembe will soon be done." If they get 
a plenty, the pupils are glad ; otherwise they have to stand in 
the hot sun uncovered, except by their crown-like wreath of 
lycopodium fern. It is a trying and humiliating position for 
any girl whose people are poor or unwilling. She must stand 



256 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

there till some one of her people shall contribute what the 
escort deems sufficient. 

Having collected each her fee for the teacher, the pupils go 
back to her at the village, and seat themselves on the ground 
under the eaves of the houses on one side of the street, each 
with her pile of goods near her. The teacher eyes these 
piles, and selects the girl who apparently has the most, to 
be the first to begin to pay. Just previous to this, stalks of 
amomum are laid down in the street, parallel to each other, 
about eighteen inches apart, in number according with the 
teacher's random guess of the number of articles in the 
chosen pile. Then she lays the articles of the pile, one by 
one, on the amomum stalk. Then another of the teachers 
seizes the hand of the girl who owned these goods, and swing- 
ing her from side to side, runs with her rapidly over that line 
of goods, herself stepping carefully on the interspaces, but 
apparently trying to confuse the girl into stepping on and 
breaking some one of the articles, e. g., a mirror or a plate. 
This ordeal safely passed, the goods of that girl are ac- 
cepted and put aside near the teacher. The goods of each 
of the other new girls are treated in the same way, and 
laid, one by one, on the amomum stalks. 

The number of some girl's articles may not equal the 
standard set by the first, and there may be not enough 
to cover every stalk. In that case the teacher will allow 
some article, e. g., a head of tobacco-leaves, to be opened and 
its separate leaves used to piece out the number. Neverthe- 
less, she will demand that something be added. It is an 
anxious time for the pupils, watching to see whether their 
fee is accepted. Sometimes the teacher, seeing that a girl's 
pile of goods is small, will not even attempt to count or 
divide it, but, looking at it, sneeringly says, "I see noth- 
ing here ! Sit you there in the sun till some one brings you 
more! " 

The last act of the "last day," before adjourning, is a 
public dance called Njega (Leopard). For that, the mem- 
bers of the society, and most spectators, dress up in fine 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 257 

clothes. It is performed in the afternoon, and visitors go to 
see it. The "Leopard" is done by the teachers, two at a 
time. All these pairs must have their faces painted, each in 
a different style, no piece of skin left untouched. 

In beginning the Leopard dance, one of the pair imi- 
tates a leopard sneaking around the corners of the houses; 
while the other one, waiting, has collected perhaps a dozen 
of the members as her "children," whom she as their 
"mother" is to guard from the "leopard." This teacher- 
mother begins a song, "Children! there is the leopard in 
shape of a person," adding as a refrain the word, "Mbwero! 
mbwero! mbwero!" which is repeated rapidly as a warning 
that the leopard is coming, ending with, " my children ! " 
They sing, and step backward and forward to a drum accom- 
paniment. While these " children " are in great pretended 
excitement, the leopard is advancing slowly, steadily, and 
nearer from the ogwerina (rear of the houses) into the street, 
with extended tongue, and growling. When the mother sees 
this, her dance step grows quicker, and she backs and 
motions to her children behind her, they imitating all her 
steps. The leopard advances with a swaying step in time 
with the music, and then suddenly dashes forward, and 
catches one of the children, and sets her aside. This is kept 
up by the leopard till most of the children are caught, only 
one or two being left. The mother then seems very much ex- 
hausted, with a sad slow step ; but the leopard at last catches 
the others. Now that her children are all dead, the mother is 
aroused to fury. The conflict remains between her and the 
leopard. And "mother" must finally kill "leopard." The 
dance becomes very much more rapid; the two approach 
nearer and nearer. Mother has a stick like a sword, and 
finally she kills leopard with a light blow. This coup is 
received by a shout from the spectators of "o-lo-lo! " 

Then another pair are selected to go through the parts of 
mother and leopard again. Sometimes one will refuse to 
act, or to be mated with the other one. Then, like a singer 
in civilized lands, she is met with entreaties from the crowd, 

17 



258 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

"Do act ! You know so well how to do it! " And then she 
yields. If at the last there is remaining only one teacher who 
has not done the act, one of those who has already performed 
will mate with her. 

At night, the last work of the society is to put out 
their fire. If the leader has come from a distant village, 
she wants to go, and she will extinguish the fire that night; 
or, if she lives near, she may choose to wait several days 
longer. But during that time the dancing and singing are 
not kept up, for the society has adjourned. 

Whatever else is unknown of the objects of Njembe, it is 
known that it is a government. It was formerly much more 
powerful than it is now. At Libreville, Gabun, thirty years 
ago, no woman dared to speak against it. Mission school- 
girls, feeling themselves secure on the mission premises, 
sometimes in their school-girl talk foolishly made disparag- 
ing remarks about it. When this reached the ear of Njembe, 
those girls would some day be caught when they were visiting 
their villages, and forced through the rites. Parents did 
not dare interfere, and missionaries had no authority to 
do so. 

In one case, however, a missionary did make a successful 
interference. The girl did not belong to Mpongwe (the tribe 
of Gabun); she was a slave-waif that had been picked 
up by the mission, and therefore, in a sense, the mission's 
daughter. The senior missionary, Rev. William Walker, was 
a tall, powerful, utterly fearless man, and his custom was 
always to carry a heavy cane. That day, the Njembe lessons 
that were being given to the abducted girl had only begun in 
the village street ; she had not yet been taken to their secret 
camp. Mr. Walker strode among the women and laid hold 
of the unresisting girl. When some women attempted to 
drag her away, he brought down his cane heavily at random 
over any head or shoulder within reach of his long arm ; and 
the girl was glad to be led back to the mission. The rescue 
was successful. Mr. Walker's use of force was justifiable 
as against Njembe's forcible abduction of the girl; and his 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 259 

parental position in the case would have justified him if the 
women had made any complaint against him before the local 
French magistrate on charge of assault. 

In a somewhat similar case, more recently, Njembe sued a 
missionary, he having assaulted them when they refused to 
remove their distressingly noisy camp from a too great prox- 
imity to the mission grounds. The magistrate dismissed the 
case, resenting Njembe's existence as a secret society, and its 
assumption of exercise of governmental authority. 

Recently also a native man was successful in thwarting 
Njembe. A certain native Christian woman had escaped 
being forced into Njembe during her youth; and by her being 
very much in mission employ during her adult years, Njembe 
had ceased to threaten her. Her daughter, of about eighteen 
years of age, though not a Christian, had also, by her mother's 
care of her, escaped, though often threatened. A cousin of 
this daughter had been put through the rite while her father 
was away on a journey. And now this cousin was trying to 
induce the daughter to enter. The daughter refused, and 
perhaps may have made some slighting remark. This remark 
her cousin reported to Njembe; and some intimations were 
made that the young woman would be seized. The father of 
the cousin had formerly been a church-member, is educated 
and gentlemanly. Though he had fallen away from the 
church, he had no desire to see his niece dragged down. He 
spoke severely to his daughter about the excitement she was 
trying to raise, and threatened to call in the aid of the French 
Chief of Police. The firm stand taken by him and also by 
the young woman's mother was efficient in preventing her 
seizure by Njembe. Both these parents are of unusual 
strength of character and advance in civilization. Without 
their efficient backing, this young woman would have been 
forced into Nje'mbe. 

Rev. J. L. Wilson, 1 wrote of Njembe almost fifty years 
ago: "There is no spirit, so far as is known, connected 
with this association, but all its proceedings are kept pro- 
1 "Western Africa, p. 397, 



260 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

foundry secret. The Njembe make great pretensions, and as 
a body are really feared by the men. They pretend to detect 
thieves, to find out the secrets of their enemies; and in 
various ways they are useful to the community in which 
they live, or, at least, are so regarded by the people. The 
object of the institution originally, no doubt, was to protect 
the females from harsh treatment on the part of their hus- 
bands; and as their performances are always veiled in mys- 
tery, and they have acquired the reputation of performing 
wonders, the men are, no doubt, very much restrained by the 
fear and respect which they have for them as a body." 

Most of the above description is, after so many years, true 
now, except that the power of and respect for the society is 
lessened by the permeating leaven of a Christian mission and 
by the dominance of a foreign government; but even in that 
same region, in portions where these two forces are not in im- 
mediate contact with the community, Njembe still is feared. 

It is true, also, that there is no special spirit belonging t6 
Njembe, but when the society has occasion to investigate a 
theft or other crime, it invokes the usual ilaga and other 
spirits. 

It is also still true that in the tribes where Njembe exists 
women have much more freedom from control by men than 
in tribes where it does not exist. But even if it has been 
thus a defence to women against man's severity, it undeniably 
has been an injury to them by its indecent ceremonies and 
phallic songs. Such things may make men fear them, but 
also make it impossible for men to respect them. 

Those songs I myself have heard when the Njembe camp 
was in a jungle near to a village. The male generative organ 
was personified, and, in the song addressed to it, the name of 
a certain man, who was known by the singers to be at that 
very time in the adjacent village, was tauntingly referred to. 
Even immoral men were overwhelmed with shame at the 
shamelessness of the women. And yet those same women, 
when their Njembe adjourned, resumed in their individual 
capacities their usual apparent modesty which, as a collec- 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 261 

tive body, they had cast aside. Little has been printed of 
Njembe's secret proceedings more than Dr. Wilson wrote fifty 
years ago. 

Paul Du Chaillu makes a short statement that he was al- 
lowed to witness a part ; and he describes a hut containing a 
few almost nude old women sitting around some skulls and 
other fetiches. Doubtless he saw what he asserts. But, 
unusual as were his opportunities, and large as was his per- 
sonal influence with his " Camma " (Nkami) native chiefs, it 
is positive that what was shown him was only a little of 
Njembe, if indeed it was Njembe at all. 

Other white men, with, indeed, perhaps less tact than he, 
but of greater money power and larger trade opportunities, 
failed to see anything. 

Some twenty-five years ago two Germans (now dead) trad- 
ing in the Gabun determined secretly to spy out Njembe. 

The merchant, the head of the trading-house, was a well- 
educated gentleman, and his clerk was an active, intelligent 
young man. Both knew native customs well, and both spoke 
the Mpongwe language fluently. Each had a native wife, 
and being generous and liberal-handed, had many native 
friends; but they had been unable to bribe any Njgmbe 
women, even their own wives, to reveal anything. 

One dark night when the society was in session in a small 
jungle not far from their trading-house, they went secretly 
and cautiously through the bushes. They had not approached 
near enough to the circle of women around the camp-fire to 
actually recognize any of them (it would have been difficult 
to recognize their painted faces even by daylight) ; and they 
really did not see anything of what was being done. Some- 
how their approach was discovered, either by information 
treacherously carried from some one in their retinue of house- 
hold servants, or by being seen by one of the pickets of the 
camp, or by the breaking of a branch as they crept through 
the trees, or, possibly, by their white odor carried on the 
wind, — odor which to Africans is almost as distinct as is 
Negro odor to the white race. 



262 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Njembe raised a frenzied cry, and started to seize them. 
The two men fled desperately through the thick bushes. 
The clerk was recognized, and his name was called out, and 
the other was assumed to be his employer. They escaped to 
the safety of their house. Njembe did not dare assault it, 
French policemen being within call ; but next day word was 
sent by the society denouncing them both, laying a curse on 
them, and plainly saying that they should die. If the threat 
had been that the means of death would be magic, these gen- 
tlemen would have laughed ; but the women did not hesitate 
to say that they would poison them in their food. This would 
be entirely possible, even without collusion among the several 
men and boys that ranged from steward to cook and waiters 
as their household servants; though, if need were, some of 
these servants would sooner be treasonable to the white master 
than dare to refuse Njembe. The case was serious. The 
older man, as a dispenser of wealth to the entire community, 
was, even in Njembe's eye, too valuable to be killed; his 
wife, herself a Njembe woman, interceded for him, and the 
curse was removed from him on the payment of a large fine. 
But the curse was doubled over the poor clerk. Njembe 
would listen to no appeal, nor accept any bribe for him, as 
they had actually seen him at their camp. 

It is a fact that shortly after this this clerk did fall into a 
decline, with strange symptoms which no doctor understood 
nor any medicines seemed to touch. He became weaker and 
weaker, and his life was despaired of. Njembe openly boasted 
that it was killing him. 

I do not know why an appeal was not made to the local 
French authorities. Perhaps because the merchant did not 
wish to give more publicity to his escapade ; perhaps because 
it would be difficult to prosecute a society, no individual 
Njembe woman appearing to be responsible. 

To save his clerk, the merchant offered to pay a very large 
sum. Njembe having had a partial revenge, having demon- 
strated its power, and standing victorious before the com- 
munity, was induced to accept. It was never known publicly 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 263 

how much was paid. The curse was withdrawn, and the 
clerk immediately began to recover ; but it was some months 
before the evil was entirely eradicated from his system. 

Beyond Dr. Wilson's and Du Chaillu's short statements 
about NjSmbe, I have seen nothing else in print, except the 
mere mention of the existence of the society by several Afri- 
can travellers. What I have written in the above I have 
obtained piecemeal at various times from different men and 
women, Christian and heathen; but all of them spoke with 
hesitation, and under promise that I should mention no 
names. 

Poisoning for Revenge. 

There are native poisons. It is known that sometimes they 
are secretly used in revenge, or to put out of the way a rela- 
tive whose wealth is desired, to be inherited. This much I 
have to admit, as to charges of " bewitching " and so-called 
"judicial executions," therefore, that in the case of some 
deaths they are actual murders, and that the perpetrator de- 
serves to be executed. But it is rare that the proof of guilt 
is clear. I have to be guarded in my admission of an ac- 
cused person's guilt, lest I give countenance to the univer- 
sal belief in death as the result of fetich agencies. I explain 
to my native questioner: If what the accused has done in 
fetich rite with intent to kill had any efficiency for taking 
away life, I allow that he shall be put to death ; if he made 
only fetiches, even if they were intended to kill, he is not 
guilty of this death, for a mere fetich cannot kill. But if he 
used poison, with or without fetich, then he is guilty. 

But even so, the distinction between a fetich and a poison 
is vague in the thought of many natives. What I call a 
" poison " is to them only another material form of a fetich 
power, both poison and fetich being supposed to be made 
efficient by the presence of an adjuvant spirit. 

Not all the deaths of foreigners in Africa are due to 
malaria. Some of them have been doubtless due to poison, 
administered by a revengeful employee. Very many white 



264 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

residents in Africa treat their servants in oppressive and 
cruel ways. Even those who are not cruel are often auto- 
cratic and arbitrary. In a country that has little law to 
hinder, and no public opinion to shame them, some white 
men treat the natives almost as slaves, cheating them of 
their wages, cursing, kicking, striking, beating, and other- 
wise maltreating and even mutilating them. Some are kind 
and just; but even they are at times severe in enforcing 
their authority. So it could occur that even a kindly-dis- 
posed foreigner might have his life attempted by an evil- 
disposed employee whose anger he had aroused. 

In general, the Bantu natives of Africa are patient, long- 
suffering, and not easily aroused to violence, but taking their 
revenge, if finally their endurance is exhausted, by robbing 
their master of his goods or otherwise wasting his trade; 
abandoning him in sickness, so that he dies really of neglect, 
or, when his boat upsets in the surf of the sea, making no 
effort to rescue him. 

The Bantu tribes are less revengeful and more amiable 
than the Negroes of Upper Guinea, or the tribes of Senegal 
and of the Sudan, with their mixture of Arab blood and 
Mahometan beliefs. 

An English traveller recently, in the Igbo country of 
Nigeria, in discussing the native belief in occult forces, says: 
" It is impossible for a white man to be present at their gath- 
erings of 'medicine men,' and it is hard to get a native to 
talk of such things ; but it seems evident to me that there is 
some reality in the phenomena one hears of, as they are be- 
lieved everywhere in some degree by white men as well as 
black. However that may be, the native doctors have a wide 
knowledge of poisons ; and if one is to believe reports, deaths 
from poison, both among white and black men, are of com- 
mon occurrence on the Niger. One of the white man's often 
quoted proverbs is, 'Never quarrel with your cook ' ; the 
meaning of which is that the cook can put something in your 
food in retaliation if you maltreat him. 

"There is everywhere a belief that it is possible to put 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 265 

medicine on a path for your enemy which, when he steps 
over it, will cause him to fall sick and die. Other people 
can walk uninjured over the spot, but the moment the man 
for whom the medicine is laid reaches the place, he succumbs, 
often dying within an hour or two. I have never seen such 
a case myself; but the Rev. A. E. Richardson says he saw 
one when on the journey with Bishop Tugwell's house-party. 
He could offer no explanation of how the thing is done, but 
does not doubt that it is done. Some of the best educated 
of our native Christians have told me that they firmly believe 
in this 'medicine-laying.' " 

The most distinct instance of attempt at poisoning which 
I have met was related to me in March, 1902, by Mr. H. L. 
Stacey, of the English trading-house of J. Holt & Co. Ltd. 
I took the following statement from his own lips, and he gave 
me liberty to use it publicly. He has since died, and his 
death was sudden. 

Mr. Stacey was a gentleman of courteous manner and of 
good education ; fearless, universally kind, and generally just 
in his treatment of the natives. He was a Christian in his 
belief, and endeavored to be one in his life. His truthful- 
ness is beyond doubt, thus making his statement entirely 
reliable. 

He had his headquarters at Bata, with native sub-traders 
scattered north and south and up the Benita River, some 
twenty-three miles south of Bata. There came to him for 
employment a Lagos man, by name Croly or Crowley. He 
spoke English well, could read and write, had quite a display 
of manner, and made himself very useful by his apparent de- 
votion, faithfulness, and honesty. All this deceived Mr. 
Stacey, who thought he had obtained a valuable servant; and 
rewarded him by giving him a sub-factory at Lobisa, a 
few miles up the Benita River. To have a factory of one's 
own is the goal of the ambition of every white trader's 
employees. 

Mr. Stacey had also a Benga sub-trader on the river at 
Senje, some ten miles above Lobisa. This Benga went to 



266 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Bata and reported to Mr. Stacey that Crowley was wasting 
his goods in riotous living and extravagant giving. While 
the Benga was away, Crowley falsely told the native Fang, 
who had been paid in advance by the former to collect india- 
rubber for him, that the Benga had been dismissed, was in 
jail, and would never come back, and induced them to sell to 
himself the rubber they had collected for the Benga. When 
the Benga returned to his post, and asked his Fang to pay 
their debt, they told him of the deception Crowley had prac- 
tised on them. There was, therefore, a triangular quarrel, 
the Benga suing the Fang for their debt to him, the Fang 
denouncing Crowley for his cheat, and Crowley angry at 
the Benga for informing Mr. S. on him. 

Just at this stage of affairs Mr. S. came on one of his 
usual visits of inspection to Senje. The Fang immediately 
sent secretly a deceptive message down to Crowley, saying 
that Mr. S. wished to see him. As soon as he came, the 
Fang began to fight him. Notwithstanding Crowley's dis- 
honesty to him, Mr. S. magnanimously defended his life, 
locked him for safety in the Benga's bedroom, and then made 
the quarrel a quadrilateral by protesting to the Fang against 
their assaulting his premises. His contention with them was 
"talked" in public " palaver, " and finally was amicably set- 
tled. During the "talk" a lad came to Mr. S. excitedly, 
saying that Crowley was spreading "medicine" in the bed of 
the Benga, with intent to kill the latter. This aroused again 
the indignation of the Fang. But Mr. S. laughed down their 
anxiety, telling them that he was not afraid of "medicine " 
(he thought it was only fetich) ; that fetich could not kill a 
white man; and that, to prove it, he would that night 
sleep in that bed, and the Benga should sleep elsewhere. 
When all was settled, he got Crowley quietly away, and sent 
him down river to his Lobisa house, with expectation of dis- 
missal. At night Mr. S. awoke with a great pain in his ab- 
domen, a great sense of constriction in his chest, skin hot, 
and body tortured with shooting pains. Only his head was 
clear and free from any distress. The symptoms were not 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 267 

those of malarial fever. The next day his limbs were para- 
lyzed. The natives said that Crowley had scattered in the 
bedding and through the mosquito net a poisonous powder. 

Mr. S. was taken helpless in his canoe down river, on the 
way passing very near Lobisa, to a house on the sea-beach 
near the river's mouth. Believing that Crowley had at- 
tempted the life of the Benga, Mr. S., while lying sick, sent 
word to the adjacent Spanish Government Post for two 
soldiers to come and arrest Crowley. (Mr. S. had been in- 
formed that C. was on his way to him.) For C, when he 
saw Mr. S. lying sick in his passing canoe, surmised what 
had happened, and was afraid the Fang would follow him to 
Lobisa and assault him there. So he had closed his house 
and fled, following Mr. S. He was coming with a double 
purpose: first, to plead with Mr. S. against dismissal; 
second, as he promptly had heard of Mr. Stacey's sleeping 
in the poisoned bed and being sick, he feared arrest and was 
ready also to make the murder plan complete, if his plea for 
mercy was denied. To this end he came prepared with a 
handful of the powder. 

Before he had reached the house where Mr. S. was, the 
two soldiers had met and arrested him, and were taking him 
to jail. He asked permission first to be allowed to see his 
"master." So they brought him to the sick-room, where he 
made many protestations of friendship and devotion, and 
plead for mercy. Mr. S. rebuked the soldiers for hesitating 
in their duty, and for having brought their prisoner there, 
and bade them take him away to the magistrate; then he 
fell back on his pillow exhausted, and lay with closed eyes, 
only semi-conscious. The soldiers went out of the room, 
leaving C. clinging to the bed. He fell on his knees by Mr. 
S.'s head, as if still to beg for pardon. Mr. S. felt C.'s 
hand insinuated under the bed cover near his pillow, and 
suddenly opened his eyes, to find C.'s closed hand near 
his face. He struck away the hand. A quantity of dark 
powder fell on the pillow near his nose. Half suffocated, by 
an effort he shouted to the soldiers, who came and took C. 



268 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

away. Mr. Stacey's little waiter-boy, who had also coine in 
at the shout, was horrified to see the poison-powder on the 
pillow. He snatched away the pillow, threw the powder out 
of doors, and told the soldiers. They, without waiting for 
official judgment at the Post, gave C. twenty-five lashes at 
once. Farther blows, twenty-five at a time, were given him 
while waiting in jail for Mr. S. to get well enough to appear 
against him. Subsequently the Chef cle Poste appointed a day 
for the hearing; but Mr. S., in his devotion to the trade in- 
terests of his employers, asked that the day be postponed, as 
his sub-traders needed just then much supervision. So the 
Chef dismissed the matter, seeming to think that if Mr. S. 
regarded his trade as of more importance than the defence of 
his life, it was no business of the government to hold the 
prisoner; and took no farther interest in it. 

Having been given, in instalments, an aggregate of two 
hundred lashes, C. was discharged. He wandered about that 
region gathering a little food, without friends, feared and 
hated, and not allowed by some even to enter their villages. 

The reputation of the Lagos powder as a powerful agent 
in destroying life has been known for years among the equa- 
torial coast tribes. Reports of it are well known among 
white men on the steamers. It is believed in, not as a super- 
stition, nor as a fetich, but as a powerful poison. Clerks and 
other workmen from Lagos are not welcomed in the Gabun 
region, as are clerks from other parts of Upper Guinea, for 
fear of their carrying that poison with them. 

Distrust. 

As a result of the universal employment of fetiches in 
African tribes, there is no confidence between man and man. 
Every one is in distrust of his neighbor; every man's hand 
against his fellow. 

" The natives of Africa, though so thoroughly devoted to 
the use of fetiches, acquire no feeling of security in conse- 
quence of using them. Perhaps their only real influence is 
to make them more insecure than they would have been with- 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 269 

out them. There is no place in the world where men feel 
more insecurity. A man must be careful whose company he 
keeps, what path he walks, whose house he enters, on what 
stool he seats himself, where he sleeps. He knows not what 
moment he may place his foot or lay his hand upon some in- 
visible engine of mischief, or by what means the seeds of 
death may be implanted in his constitution." 1 

Because of this lack of confidence, the natural affections 
and the duties of the dearest relations are perverted. Wives 
afraid of husbands, and husbands afraid of wives ; children 
afraid of parents, and parents afraid of children ; the chief of 
the village uncertain of his people ; and the entire community 
that must live and eat and associate together, living and eating 
and associating with a constant secretly entertained suspicion 
of each other. 

JlTGGLEBY. 

While in some of the rites performed by the native doctor- 
priest there is real diabolism, i. e., communication with Satan, 
and certain wonders are performed through the Prince of the 
Power of Darkness, I am disposed to believe that in most 
cases the " doctor " is self-deceived, certainly in many cases 
I believe him to be a deliberate deceiver. The native so- 
called " prophet " is probably an artful mind-reader ; and the 
fortune-teller, like our own fortune-tellers, a skilful observer 
of the subject's tones, manner, and unguarded admissions in 
conversation which give ground for shrewd guessing. 

Arnot 2 says : " These professional diviners are no doubt 
smart fellows, arch-rogues though they be. The secret of 
their art lies in their constant repetition of every possibility 
in connection with the disaster they are called upon to explain 
until they finally hit upon that which is in the minds of their 
clients. As the people sit around and repeat the words of the 
diviner, it is easy for him to detect in their tone of voice or to 
read in their faces the suspected source of the calamity. 

" A man had a favorite dog which was attacked by a leopard, 

1 Wilson, "Western Africa. 2 Garenganze, p. 107. 



270 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

but succeeded in escaping with one of its eyes torn out. To 
ascertain the reason of this calamity, the owner sent to call 
one of these diviners. When he arrived, to test him, he was 
told that a disaster had befallen my acquaintance, and was 
asked to find out by divination what it was. The diviner 
with his rattles and other paraphernalia, and dances, and 
other movements to occupy attention, after the manner of 
jugglers, asked leading questions of the spirit he was profess- 
ing to consult, but really he was watching the faces of his au- 
dience for their unconsciously given assent or dissent. Thus, 
in succession, he found that the misfortune, whatever it was, 
was not to a human being ; then not to certain families ; then 
to some object possessed by a certain man ; then that it was 
not about an ox nor about a goat ; then that it was about a 
dog ; then, after certain other possibilities, was it connected 
with a leopard ? So excited were the audience that they for- 
got that they had been ' giving themselves away,' and when 
the diviner asked the spirit, ' Was it a leopard ? ' they shouted 
with admiration at his supposed skill. After a whole day of 
such proceedings the diviner triumphed by announcing " that 
the spirit of the father of one of the man's wives had been 
grieved at the man's long absence from his town and family, 
and had employed the leopard to tear the dog's eye as a gentle 
reminder that it was time he should go back to his own 
village." 

In connection with the Yoruba custom of parents of twins 
having images carved of their dead twins, " the carving of 
those images is a flourishing and money-making trade. If the 
parents of the dead child are in comfortable circumstances, 
the carvers tell them that they have seen in their dreams 
the dead twin, and that he or she has asked them to send 
such and such clothes, articles of food, money, etc. 

" Sometimes they say the twins appeared to them in the 
forest when they went to cut the Ire-wood to be carved, and 
bade them not to venture it. In such cases special sacrifices 
must be offered before taking any steps. In this way months 
pass before the carving is complete ; during which time the 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 271 

carvers demand of the parents whatever they feel they are 
capable of supplying them with." 1 

In the Corisco region, some thirty years ago, I knew a 
native sorcerer who achieved quite a reputation because he 
could perform the thimble-rig juggler-trick of making a leaf 
appear and disappear between two plates. 

One of my associates in the Ogowe, the late H. M. Bachelor, 
M.D., had brought with him from the United States a few 
tricks of "" parlor magic." He quite astonished my school- 
children by swallowing and subsequently vomiting up a pen- 
knife, and by passing a threaded needle through the thigh of 
one of the boys. Dr. B. did the tricks so artistically that 
even I did not detect the deception about the penknife ; and 
the boy solemnly asserted that he felt the needle travelling 
through his leg. The exhibition was a happy one in reveal- 
ing to the natives how an evil-disposed sorcerer would be 
able to deceive them. 

A lady of the West African Mission of the American Board 
says : " I once witnessed the performance of a witch-doctor 
on one of my visits among the villages. The chief of the 
country was sick, and the doctor was giving him a massage 
treatment. By sleight of hand he seemed to draw from the 
patient's side chicken's claws, feathers, bones, sticks, pebbles, 
etc. Some " witch," it was supposed, had caused these things 
to grow in the man's body with intent to kill. It was evident 
to the astonished crowd which had gathered around, that their 
king would probably get well, now these things were removed. 
The doctor's bill was promptly paid, — a thousand balls of 
rubber, ten pieces of cloth, and a large pig. An ox was 
slaughtered, and a beer drink indulged in to celebrate the 
occasion and to appease any offended spirit." 

Treatment of Lunatics. 

The insane being supposed to be physically and mentally 
possessed by an intruding spirit, their actions are necessarily 

1 Niger and Yoruba Notes. 



272 FETICHISM IN WEST AFPJCA 

not considered to be the outcome of their own volitions. This 
view does not always, in the native mind, relieve a lunatic of 
the burden of the consequences of his acts. 

There is great diversity, therefore, in the treatment of the 
insane in different districts and in different tribes. In some 
regions a tribe holds to the following reasoning : This person 
is possessed by a spirit. That spirit is occupying his body 
and using his voice and limbs for some reason. If we inter- 
fere with this person's doings, then we will be interfering 
with the spirit and may bring evil on ourselves. Therefore 
it is considered proper to make offerings and some degree of 
worship to the incarnated spirit. But it is not true that the 
lunatic himself is an object of worship. The gifts and sacri- 
fices are made solely to and for the spirit ; the prayer of the 
petitioners being that it may refrain from inciting the pos- 
sessed person to do them evil, and in the hope that it may 
conclude to depart and leave the patient and them alone. 

In other places this same belief of possession leads to a 
very different logical conclusion. The thought is : This per- 
son is possessed by an evil spirit ; if we allow him to remain, 
that evil spirit will do us only evil ; let us put this man, who 
is thus being utilized for evil, out of the way, and perhaps 
in so doing we may get rid of the possessing spirit also. So 
the lunatic is put to death. The manner of death sometimes 
chosen is a cruel one, as if thereby the spirit itself might also 
be injured or incapacitated to do further evil. Observe that 
this cruelty is not directed against the demented human 
being, but against the indwelling spirit. The maniac in 
being put to death is sometimes beaten with clubs, sometimes 
burned, sometimes drowned, as if the evil possessing spirit 
might itself be fractured or charred or sunk. 

The forms of lunacy I have seen are mild, rarely maniacal. 
The lunatics I have met in the Gabun region were both 
men and women. Among women I have thought a cause was 
uterine complications ; among both men and women, excessive 
use of tobacco ; in two cases of men the cause was hashish- 
smoking. These last were characterized by a deep melan- 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 273 

choly ; all the others were marked by absurd hallucinations. 
Undeniably, in two cases in Gabun, the paroxysms were 
influenced by the stage of the moon. 

The only medication of which the natives know is exor- 
cism by fetich with drum and dance, baths and purgatives. 
When a person is discovered to be crazy, he is taken to the 
doctor, who gathers medicinal barks and leaves, makes a very 
hot decoction, and puts it under a seat on which is placed 
the patient. Both seat and patient are covered by a cloth, 
and he is subjected to a severe sweating process. During 
this time the doctor calls out to the supposed possessing 
spirit, "Who are you? who are you?" Perhaps the sick 
man will say (his voice supposed to be under control of 
nkinda), "I am So-and-so." The doctor replies, "Eh! you 
So-and-so ! leave him, or I will catch you and put you in 
prison." The prison is a section of sugar-cane stalk with 
its leaves twined together; and the doctor is believed to 
be able to confine the nkinda there. And it remains there 
indefinitely; but it may be released by the will of the 
doctor, who will choose to free it some day unless he is 
paid not to do so. Sometimes the crazy person has so many 
sinkinda that he becomes a maniac, losing all sense of shame 
or even of hunger. In such a case he is tied till he be- 
comes quiet and the doctor announces that the sinkinda 
have all gone out. The patient is then washed, and the 
doctor with song and drum calls on good sinkinda to come 
and enter, and directs them to take care of the man's 
body. 

The American Negro Voodoo. 

When the Negro was brought to America as a slave, he 
brought with him a variety of African things, some good, 
some bad. 

When hurried upon the slave-ships in the Kongo or at 
Lagos, the slave tied into a little package, hung among his 
other fetich treasures, seeds of his favorite foods. At least 
one of these seeds survived, in the West Indies and thence to 

18 



274 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

the United States, with a native name "gumbo." It is the 
okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), that exists all over Africa, 
and has spread over the United States. 

Ground-nuts — " pea-nuts " (Arachis hypogea), which bota- 
nists claim to be a native of South America — have been 
grown from time immemorial all over Africa, and, in the 
Loango country bordering on the Kongo River, by the 
Ashira and some other tribes are used as their staple article 
of food, rather than the plantain (Musa sapientum), or 
"manioc," cassava (Jatropha manihot). It is an important 
export from those regions and from the Gambia to-day. If 
the nut itself was not carried from Africa to America, its 
native name was; that name is "mbenda," and it was cor- 
rupted to "pindar" in parts of the Southern States. 

The evil thing that the slave brought with him was his 
religion. You do not need to go to Africa to find the 
fetich. During the hundred years that slavery in our 
America held the Negro crushed, degraded, and apart, his 
master could deprive him of his manhood, his wife, his 
child, the fruits of his toil, of his life; but there was one 
thing of which he could not deprive him, — his faith in 
fetich charms. Not only did this religion of the fetich endure 
under slavery ; it grew. None but Christian masters offered 
the Negro any other religion; and, by law, even they were 
debarred from giving him any education. So fetichism 
flourished. The master's children were infected by the con- 
tagion of superstition ; they imbibed some of it at their Negro 
foster-mother's breast. It was a secret religion that lurked 
thinly covered in slavery days, and that lurks to-day be- 
neath the Negro's Christian profession as a white art, and 
among non-professors as a black art; a memory of the re- 
venges of his African ancestors; a secret fraternity among 
slaves of far-distant plantations, with words and signs, — the 
lifting of a finger, the twitch of an eyelid, — that telegraphed 
from house to house with amazing rapidity (as to-day in 
Africa) current news in old slave days and during the late 
Civil War; suspected, but never understood by the white 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS 275 

master ; which, as a superstition, has spread itself among our 
ignorant white masses as the " Hoodoo." Vudu, or Odoism, 
is simply African fetichism transplanted to American soil. 

" It is almost impossible for persons who have been brought 
up under this system ever to divest themselves fully of its 
influence. It has been retained among the blacks of this 
country, and especially at the South, though in a less open 
form, even to the present day, and probably will never be fully 
abandoned until they have made much higher attainments in 
Christian education and civilization. In some of the planta- 
tions of the South, as well as in the West Indies, where there 
has been less Christian culture, egg-shells are hung up in the 
corners of their chimneys to cause the chickens to nourish ; an 
extracted tooth is thrown over the house or worn around the 
neck to prevent other teeth from aching ; and real fetiches, 
though not known by this name [perhaps "mascots"?], are 
used about their persons to shield them from sickness or from 
the effects of witchcraft." 2 

While on a furlough in the United States in 1891, I visited 
a town in Southern Virginia, and by invitation of the Negro" 
pastor of the African church addressed them on foreign 
missions. Somewhat at a loss what attitude to take toward a 
Negro audience in speaking to them of Africa, I candidly 
asked the pastor what I should say. He bade me speak 
exactly as if I was addressing an educated white assembly. I 
did so. In describing native African virtues and vices, I 
mentioned their fetichism, and remarked that it was the same 
that obtained in the United States; and lest my hearers 
might think I was personally attacking them, I added, " down 
South in Georgia and Louisiana." The bench of elders 
sitting just in front of me broke out, " And jist around hyar, 
too." 

I had read Cable's " Creole Tales." One of his characters is 
sick with a strange vague affection whose symptoms medicine 
had failed to reach. He is superstitious, and one morning he 
wakes in horror at finding a dead frog secreted under his 

1 Wilson. 



276 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

pillow. That fetich was no novelist's conjecture ; it was 
true to life. About 1894 or 1895, while I was alone in charge 
of Gabun Station, for three successive mornings when I 
opened the front door, I found a dried frog leaning against the 
threshold. I did not care enough about it to inquire its sig- 
nificance or to ascertain who put it there. Since then I 
have found that it is not used as a fetich by people of the 
Gabun region, but probably by Upper Coast people. I 
remember that at that time I had three Bassa workmen 
from Liberia whom I suspected of stealing and who then 
suddenly deserted my service. I think they placed the frog 
there, either to injure me or to prevent my following up 
their theft. 

Folk-Lore. 

An attractive survival of African life in America are 
" Uncle Remus's " mystic tales of " Br'er Rabbit/' They are 
the folk-lore that the slave brought with him from his African 
home, where in village hut and forest camp often have been 
told to my own ears similar weird personifications before 
Harris had actually written them. There being no rabbits in 
West Africa, " Br'er Rabbit " is an American substitution for 
" Brother " Nja (Leopard), or Brother Iheli (Gazelle), in 
Paia Njambi's (the Creator's) council of speaking animals. 



CHAPTER XVI 

TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 

THE view-point of the native African mind, in all un- 
usual occurrences, is that of witchcraft. Without 
looking for an explanation in what civilization would call nat- 
ural causes, his thought turns at once to the supernatural. 
Indeed, the supernatural is so constant a factor in his life, 
that to him it furnishes explanation of events as prompt and 
reasonable as our reference to the recognized forces of nature. 
Mere coincidences are often to him miracles. 

In the large mass of materials which I gathered from all 
native sources of information for the formulation of the phi- 
losophy of fetichism, as presented in the former part of this 
work, I found many remarkable tales some of whose incidents 
were probable, and which to me were explicable on natural 
grounds, but which my native friends believed were the effect 
of witchcraft power. I did not dispute them. To do so would 
either have closed their lips or made them omit the witchcraft 
element from any subsequent stories they might narrate to 
me. I thus secured these tales as a purely native product. 

I did not use a note-book, fearing that its presence would 
hamper the freedom of the story-teller, but listened carefully 
and wrote down the interview immediately at its close. Not 
all knew that I was writing for publication. That knowledge 
would have interfered with the simplicity of their utterances. 
Of my several informants, some were ignorant, some heathen, 
some Christian, only a few well educated. Of the most intel- 
ligent of my informants, two allowed me to take notes as they 
were speaking, and I really wrote from dictation ; they con- 
siderately spoke slowly, so that I should miss nothing, while 



278 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

I wrote rapidly and at the same time had to translate their 
language into English. Of those two, one was able to give 
part of the interview in English. The thoughts in these 
stories are entirely native. So are most of the words. I tried 
to retain the narrators' own structure of sentences, sacrificing a 
little of English for the sake of native idioms. The prevalence 
of short words is due to my effort at exact translation of their 
own words. Occasionally I have used longer words of Latin 
origin because I had forgotten their word, and in an effort to 
repeat their idea. The shortness of the sentences is due to 
the natives' graphic and animated style of speaking. Long 
sentences are foreign to their mode of speech. 

The following two stories are illustrative of the native 
belief, mentioned in Chapter IV, that we possess not only 
our physical body, but also an essential or " astral " form, in 
shape and feature like the body. This form, or " life," with 
its " heart," can be stolen by magic power while one is 
asleep, and the individual sleeps on unconscious of his loss. 
If the life-form is returned to him before he awakes, he will 
be unaware that anything unusual has happened. If he 
awakes before that portion of him has been returned, though 
he may live for a while, he will sicken and eventually die. 
If the magicians who stole the " life " have eaten the " heart," 
he sickens at once, and will soon die. 

I. A Witch Sweetheart. 

A certain man loved a woman whom he expected to marry. 
He visited her regularly. Whenever he intended to visit her, 
he always notified her thus : " I will be coming such a day " 
or "such an hour." Then she would say, " Yes." But it 
happened on a particular day when he told her, " I '11 be com- 
ing to-night," she said, " No, not to-night, wait till next 
night." He replied, " No, for I will come to-night." But 
she refused, " No, I do not want you to come to-night." 
Then he asked, " What is your objection ? Hitherto you have 
let me come when I pleased. What is the matter to-night?" 
So she said, " I do not want you to come, because I will be 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 279 

absent to-night." "Where are you going?" he asked. To 
this she gave as answer only, " Don't come ! I don't want you 
to come ! " So the man said, " All right ! I will not come. 
If you don't want me, then I 'm not coming." So he left her, 
very much surprised at what she had said, and began to think 
something was going wrong; he thought he would like to 
know for himself what it was. 

This woman was one of those who belonged to the Witch 
Society, and engaged in its plays. But the man had not sus- 
pected this, and did not know that she was one of those who 
played. 

The native belief is that when a witch or wizard has seized 
some one to " eat " his " life " or do him other harm, if there 
be a non-society witness hidden or in the open, the odor of 
that witness weakens the witch power, and the attempt at 
witchcraft fails. 

This man, not suspecting the real state of the case, but in 
order to know what was going on with the woman, came softly 
and hid near her house, where he might be able to see whether 
any one went in or came out. Soon he heard the door of her 
house open. He saw her come out of the house without any 
clothing, and she quietly pulled the door to after her and 
closed it, and then walked away from the place. All this the 
man saw, but he said nothing. He stood outside waiting, 
waiting until she should return. After a long while, as he 
was tired standing, he thought he would go into the house and 
hide himself somewhere. It was not long after this that he 
heard a little noise outside, and looking through the aper- 
tures of the bamboo wall saw her and others with her, men 
and women. Some of them were carrying the form of a 
man on their shoulders. Others spread out on the ground 
green plantain leaves, and stretched the form on the leaves. 
Each of the party had a knife, and they began their work of 
cutting the form into pieces. While thus occupied, they saw 
that their knives would not penetrate. Some of them began 
to step around, peeping into recesses as if they were looking for 
something. Still trying to cut, their knives seemed dulled ; 



280 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

no one of them could succeed in cutting out a single piece. 
So they stopped, and began to sharpen their knives, and again 
tried to cut, using more force in their efforts. They worked 
rapidly, for they had to hasten, as there were signs of ap- 
proaching day. 

As they still were unable to make any incisions after the 
sharpening of the knives, they thought it very strange, and 
began to suspect that some one was near witnessing what they 
were doing. So some of them began to search in different 
directions ; they sniffed to detect the odor of a person. This 
they did over and over again, and came back, and again 
sharpened their knives, and again they failed. And then they 
would again go around, sniffing for a human being. 

At last, as it was near morning, they had to give up their 
intention of cutting into this form. So they had to take 
it up again on their shoulders and carry it back to where they 
had brought it from, and lost their feast. 

Then the woman came back to her house, very much dis- 
appointed and excited. Though it was still dark, it was so 
near daybreak that she did not go to bed, but took a light, 
and began to hunt all through her house, having at last be- 
gun to suspect that perhaps her lover was there. Finally 
she found him where he was hiding. She was very angry, 
saying, " Who told you to come here ? What brought you ? 
And when did you come? Did I not tell you not to come 
to-night?" But he turned on her, sa}dng, "But where have 
you yourself been ? And what have you yourself been doing ? 
I came here expecting to find another man here. But that is 
not what I saw! " 

She trembled, saying, "Have you been here a long time?" 
And he significantly said, " Yes, I have ! " Then, furious, 
she said, " Now you have seen all that we were doing, and 
you have found me out! And as }^ou have discovered that I 
am engaged in witchcraft, and lest you tell others about it, 
you shall see that I will put an end to your life ! You shall 
not go out of this house alive! " So she pulled out her knife. 
But the man was quite strong, and though he had no weapon, 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 281 

made a hard fight. He was stronger than the woman, was 
able to get away from her, and left the house just before 
daylight. 

From that day their friendship was broken; neither cared 
again to see the face of the other. The man informed on the 
woman. But she was not prosecuted ; for no one was able to 
make specific complaint that they had lost their "heart-life." 
That form had been restored to its person unrecognized and 
uninjured. No one out of the society, not even the victim 
himself, knew of the attempt that had been made on him. 

II. A Jealous Wife. 

A man of the Orungu tribe in the Ogowe region had 
several wives, of whom the chief, commonly called the 
" queen " or head-wife, had no children. This was a grief to 
her and a disappointment to the husband. But one of his 
younger women, who had now become his favorite, had a 
baby, and the head-wife was jealous of her. 

The husband still retained the older one as the bearer of 
the keys and in direction of the other women, though he was 
beginning to doubt her, as he suspected her of witchcraft. 
But he said nothing about it, not being sure. 

It is believed that witches can enter houses without open- 
ing doors or breaking walls, and can do what they please 
without other people knowing of it at the time. So 
one night this man and his young wife were sleeping in the 
same bed with their little babe. Suddenly, after midnight, 
the mother happened to wake up startled. She missed her 
baby from the bed. She looked and looked all over the bed 
from head to foot, and did not find it. Then she was fright- 
ened, woke up her husband gently, and told him in a whisper, 
"The child is missing! I don't see the child! " 

The husband told her to get up and light a gum-torch (for 
there were coals smouldering on the clay hearth used as a fire- 
place), that they might look for the child. She did so, 
and both hunted, looking under the bedstead and elsewhere, 
but did not find the child. Then they examined the windows 



282 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

and door; for perhaps the child had been taken out by some 
one. The door and windows were all properly fastened. 
The mother was very much troubled; but her husband, keep- 
ing his own counsel, advised her not to scream or make a 
noise, but said, "Let us go back to bed, but not to go to 
sleep ; and let the room be dark again. " So the wife put out 
the torch, leaving the room in darkness ; and they returned 
to bed. Then the husband said, "Maybe we can prove or 
see something before morning" (for he suspected); and he 
added, " Whoever or whatever has taken the child out so 
secretly, will secretly bring it back. So we must not sleep, 
but watch." 

So both lay awake in bed for a few hours. Then, just be- 
fore morning, while it was still dark, they heard a little noise 
outside near the house, like the rustling of wings and the 
panting of breath. They were both anxious, and had their 
eyes wide open. Soon they saw the room flashed full of 
a bright light from the roof. [Witchcraft people are noted 
for having a light which they can thus flash.] Then the wife, 
as soon as she saw the light, quietly nudged her husband; 
and he returned the pressure, to let her know that he was 
aware, and also to intimate that she should continue silent as 
himself; and they pretended to be sleeping soundly. 

Soon they saw the figure of a woman descend from the low 
roof, but with no hole in the roof. The figure came to 
the bedside and lifted up the edge of the mosquito-net with 
one hand, in the other holding a child. As soon as she at- 
tempted to put the baby back in its place, between the 
father and mother, the father, as he was the stronger, and 
nearer to the figure on the outside of the bed, got up 
quickly, and seized both hands of the woman before she had 
time to let go of the child and escape from the room. He 
said aloud to the mother, " Get up ! Your baby has been miss- 
ing. Now light the light, and we will see the person face 
to face who has taken the child out!" 

The young mother did so, and they discovered that it was 
the head-wife who had brought in the child. 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 283 

Then, when the father felt the body of the babe, it was limp 
and burning with fever. 

As it was so near daylight the father did not delay, but 
began at once to make a fuss, and shouted for the people of 
the village to gather together. And he began a " palaver " 
(investigation) immediately. When all the people had as- 
sembled to hear the palaver, both the father and the mother 
related what had passed during the night, about their miss- 
ing the child, and its return. 

The head-wife, being accused, was silent, having nothing 
to say for herself; for she was both ashamed and afraid -to 
confess that she had been eating the life of the baby. But 
all the people knew that such things were done, and they 
believed that this woman had done with the baby whatever 
she wanted to do while she had it outside that night. 

Then the father of the child tied up the head-woman, and 
said to her, " Now I have you in my hands, I will not let 
you go until you give back the baby's life, and make it well 
again." [The belief is that if the "heart-life " has not been 
eaten the victim can recover.] This she was not able to do, 
for she had eaten its "heart." So the next day the baby died. 
And the husband executed that head-woman by cutting her 
throat. 

The above incident was told me at Libreville by a very 
intelligent Mpongwe as having actually occurred in the 
Gabun region. It is fully believed that walls are no ob- 
stacle to the passage of the bodies of those possessing the 
power of sorcery. The "light" spoken of I have seen. I 
do not know what it was. From a small point it would flash 
with starlike rays. It was carried by a man, who disap- 
peared when pursued. A Christian native told me that he 
once pursued it, and caught the bearer with a torch concealed 
in a hollow cylinder; the flashing was caused by his thrust- 
ing it in and out of the cylinder. 



284 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

III. Witchcraft Mothers. 

(On an itineration in my boat on the Ogowe interior, in 
1890, I came to a village of the Akele tribe, whose inhab- 
itants were in an intense state of excitement. All the men 
were brandishing guns and spears or daggers ; women were 
gesticulating and screaming ; the loins of all were girded for 
fight; and a few only of the older men and some strangers 
were appealing for quiet. 

Among the latter was a native trader of the Mpongwe 
coast tribe. His trade interests made for peace. I knew 
him, as he had received some education in our Gabun 
school. 

I saw that in such confusion it would be useless to attempt 
to ask a hearing for my gospel message. I did not wait to 
inquire the cause of the day's commotion, and passed on 
to another village. 

Subsequently the Mpongwe man told me the story. 
Though slightly educated and enlightened, he was not a 
Christian and believed in fetiches. His account, therefore, 
was from the heathen standpoint. I cannot repeat his own 
wording, but the outline of the story is exactly his.) 

In that village were two slave women, each married to a 
free husband. Each was expecting to become a mother, — 
No. 1 in three months, and No. 2 in six months. They were 
friends; and, unknown to their husbands, were members of 
the Witchcraft Society, and were accustomed secretly to at- 
tend and take part in the society's midnight meetings and 
plays. Just what is the nature of those plays is not quite 
certain, but it is known that wild orgies of dancing consti- 
tute a part of them. 

These two women, that they might be freer for their danc- 
ing and other movements, were accustomed, in going to the 
meetings, to divest themselves temporarily of their unborn 
babes. This they were able to do by witchcraft power, in 
virtue of which the possessor can pass, or cause any one 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 285 

else to pass, uninjured through any material object, as a 
ray of light passes through glass. 

This they did on their way to the meeting-place on the 
edge of the forest. They laid their babes on the grass in 
a secluded spot, and resumed them on their return. As 
they did so, No. 1 observed that hers was a male, and No. 2 
that hers was a female. They did this many nights in 
succession. 

Subsequently No. 2 began to be envious of No. 1 in the 
possession by the latter of a male child. The husband of 
No. 2 had been very anxious for a son. She knew that if 
she could present him with a son he would be very proud, 
and would enlarge her position and privileges in the family. 
So, one night, she did not wait for her friend No. 1 to re- 
turn with her, but, excusing herself from the play, came 
back on the path alone. Coming to where the two babes 
were lying, she deliberately exchanged her own girl for 
the boy of No. 1. 

The latter stayed very late at the play, — so late that, as she 
hasted home, fearful lest the morning light should find her 
on the path (a dangerous thing to a witch -player), on coming 
to where the babes had been deposited, she snatched up the 
remaining one without examining it, and, supposing it to be 
hers, resumed the natural possession of it. 

Shortly after this, the nine months of No. 1 were fulfilled, 
and she bore a child which, to her surprise, she saw was a 
female. She made no remark, as she immediately suspected 
what had been done. She waited three months, until the 
days of No. 2 also were fulfilled. At the birth of the child 
of No. 2 there was great rejoicing by the husband in the pos- 
session of a son. He made a great feast, and called together 
a large gathering of people. Among them was not invited 
the woman No. 1 ; for she and No. 2 were no longer friendly, 
though neither of them had said anything. 

In the midst of the rejoicings No. 1 made her appearance, 
though uninvited, and striding among the guests, went 
silently into the bedroom, carrying a three-months-old female 



286 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

babe. She went to the side of the bed of No. 2, laid down 
the female child, saying, "There's your baby!" snatched 
up the male infant, saying, " This is mine ! " and strode 
out of the room into the street and on the way to her 
house. 

A scream from No. 2 startled the crowd of guests; word 
was passed that the boy was being stolen, and No. 1 was pur- 
sued and brought back; but she desperately refused to give 
up the boy. The whole village was at once thrown into 
confusion. 

That was the state of affairs on the day that I arrived 
there. My informant told me that he and others induced the 
crowd to quiet, b}^ saying that the matter could better be set- 
tled by a talk than by guns, by sitting down in council than 
by standing up in fight. 

On being brought before the council or palaver, No. 1 
was calm and firm. She still held to the boy-baby. She 
said she was willing to be judged, but demanded that No. 2 
should also be made to confront the council. The sense of 
guilt of the latter made her weak and unable to face the friend 
she had wronged. 

Charged with stealing, No. 1 made a bold speech. She 
said, "Yes; I have taken my own! If that be stealing, 
I have stolen!" And then she told the whole truth of the 
witchcraft plays of herself and No. 2. The latter, overcome 
with shame for her crime, did not deny; she admitted all. 
And No. 1 closed her defence by saying, "So this other 
woman has nothing about which to make complaint. She 
has her child, and I have mine, and that settles the matter." 

The crowd was amazed, and the husbands were ashamed 
at finding that their wives were witches. The husband of 
No. 2 was no longer disposed to fight after his wife had 
admitted that the boy-baby was not her own. The matter 
was dropped, as no one was really harmed. Neither husband 
was disposed to fine the wife of the other for her witchcraft, 
as both were guilty. 

The guests ate the feast, but the host had no satisfaction 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 287 

in its now useless expenditure except that it was considered 
sufficient reparation to the husband of No. 1 for his own 
wife's original theft. 

IV. The Wizard House-Breaker. 

(The incidents narrated in the following three stories, The 
Wizard House-Breaker, The Wizard Murderer, The Wiz- 
ard and his Invisible Dog, my informant asserted were 
actual occurrences; Nos. IV. and VI. occurring in the Gabun 
region, and the parties known. The witchcraft part of the 
stories consists in the strange light which wizards and witches 
are said to possess; it is under their control to display or 
hide, and it gives them power to overcome time and space. 
The scene of No. V. is on the Ogowe River.) 

There were a husband and wife who had been married a 
number of years. She had a child, a little boy. The hus- 
band had a brother; and this brother had taken a strong fancy 
to the woman, and wanted to possess her. Secretly he was 
asking her to live with him. But the woman always refused, 
saying, "No, I do not want it!" Then this brother's love 
began to change to anger. He cherished vexation in his 
heart toward the woman, and asked her, " Why do you al- 
ways refuse me? You are the wife, not of a stranger, but 
of my brother. He and I are one, and you ought to accept 
me." But she persisted, "No, I don't want it! " 

The brother's anger deepened into revenge. He possessed 
nyemba (witchcraft power), and determined to use it. 

One day this woman had to go to her plantation ; and she 
arranged for the journey, taking her little boy with her. 
Before she left the village to go to the plantation, she told 
the townspeople, "I will remain at the plantation for some 
days, to take care of my gardens ; for I am tired of losses by 
the wild beasts spoiling my crops." But the other women 
said, "Ah! your plantation is too far; it is not safe for you 
to be by yourself." But she said, " I cannot help it ; I have 
to go." She was brave, and persisted in her plan, and made 



288 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

all preparations. On a set day, with her basket on her back, 
her child on her left hip, and her machete in her right hand, 
the started. She went on, on, steadily; reached the planta- 
tion, and rested there the remainder of that day with her 
child. After her evening meal she shut the door of the hut 
and went to bed. The door was fastened with strings and a 
bar, for the plantation hamlets had no locks. 

She awoke suddenly about midnight, and thought she 
heard a noise outside. She listened quietly. Then she heard 
the sound again. Presently she discovered by the noise 
that some one was trying to climb upon the top of the 
hut, for the roof was low. Soon, then, she observed that 
this person was trying to break open the palm -thatch of 
the low roof. She still lay quietly. But she remembered 
a big spear which the husband always kept in one of the 
rooms of that hut ; so she slowly got out of bed, and very 
softly went to the corner of the room where the spear was 
standing, and returned to bed with it. 

The breaking of the thatch continued. Soon she saw the 
room filled with a strange light, and then she saw a man 
trying to enter the roof head foremost. She bravely kept 
still, and watched his head and shoulders enter. She could 
not see his face, and did not know who he was. But she 
did not wait for certainty; she thrust the spear upward at 
the man's head. Immediately the figure disappeared, and 
she heard a heavy thud as he fell to the ground into the 
street outside. 

She now began to be frightened; she no longer felt safe, 
and dreaded what might happen before morning. So she 
began to get ready to return to town that very night. She 
girded her loin garment, fastened the cloth for carrying her 
child, took her machete, hasted out of the hut, and started 
for her village. In her fear she ran, and rested by walking. 
Thus, alternately running and walking, she reached the vil- 
lage so exhausted and weak with loss of sleep that when 
her husband's door was opened she fell fainting on the floor. 
He and others were alarmed, and asked, "What? What's 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 289 

the matter?" As soon as she was able to speak, she 
told the whole story. They asked her, "Did you see the 
person? Do you know him?" She said, "No; only one 
thing I know: it was a man, and he fell into the street." 

So, when daylight came, the husband and others went to 
the plantation to see whether they could find the man. 
When they reached the plantation, they were very much sur- 
prised to see that the man was this brother. He was lying 
dead, with the spear in his neck. 

The husband was not vexed at his wife for the death of 
his brother; he was pleased that she had so well defended 
herself. 

V. The Wizard Murderer. 

(My informant asserted that this really happened in the 
Ogowe.) 

The parties are a husband and wife, their two little chil- 
dren, and a younger brother of the husband. One of the 
children, a boy, was a lad old enough to understand affairs. 

The brother-in-law loved the woman, and secretly tried to 
draw her affections to himself; but to all his solicitation 
she gave only persistent refusal. Thus matters went on, he 
asking and she refusing; and then his love turned to hatred. 

It happened one day that the husband and wife had a big 
quarrel of their own. The wife was so angry that she said 
she would leave him, take the children, and go to her father's 
house. But that home was far away, and could not be 
reached in one day. Other women tried to prevent her going, 
as she would have to spend the night in the forest on the 
way; but she insisted. 

Leaving her clothing and other goods, she started off with 
the two children, a little food, and her machete. Trying to 
make the journey in one day, she walked very fast. But 
when the sun had set, and soon darkness would fall, the lad 
said, "Mother, as we cannot reach there to-night, don't you 
think we 'd better stop and arrange a sleeping-place before 

19 



290 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

dark, and let the spot be a little aside from the public path ? " 
The mother said, "Yes; that is good! " Then she gave the 
babe to the lad to hold, while she with her machete began 
to cut away bushes and clear the ground for a convenient 
sleeping-spot. After she had cut away some bushes, the lad 
watching her, saw that she was clearing a space larger than 
was needed for herself. He asked her, "Do you intend 
that we all shall sleep in that one place, — you and baby 
and I?" The mother said, "Yes." But he said, "Why, 
no ! Fix two places, — I by myself, and you and baby in 
another place." The mother replied, "No, I cannot let 
you sleep alone in this forest; I want you near me." 
However, the lad insisted: "But if anything happens to us 
in the night, then we will be lost all together. I am not 
willing that we should be all in the same place." 

So the lad began to search for a place for himself, and came 
to a big tree which was not very far from his mother's chosen 
spot. He called her to him, and said, " I have found a good 
place. Just you clear for me behind this big tree, and dig a 
trench for me to lie in, just below the level of the ground." 
The mother did so. 

After the two spots were cleared, they ate their little even- 
ing meal, and night came. Then the lad said, " Now I go 
to lie in the trench, and you sprinkle leaves over me to hide 
me, and then you go to your sleeping-place. And if anything 
happens to me at night, I promise I will not cry out; I will 
remain silent. And you promise that if anything happens to 
you, you also will not cry out, nor call to me." The mother 
agreed, and both went to sleep. 

Not long after this, both were awakened by a strange flash- 
ing light, and the mother saw some one coming to the place 
where she was lying. Then the light was suddenly extin- 
guished; and she saw a man near her, and recognized that 
he was her brother-in-law. She was exceedingly alarmed, 
knowing that he did not come with good intent. In her 
fright she hoped to gain time by pretending to be friendly 
with him. So she exclaimed, " Oh ! My young husband ! 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 291 

Now you have come after me, so that your brother's wife 
will not have to sleep in the forest alone. Now we will 
make friendship and be good friends." But he replied in 
anger: "Friends, you say? You shall see what kind of 
friends I will make with you to-night! You, the woman 
who hates me! Where is the lad?" She, determined to 
shield the child, said, " The lad did not come with me ; he 
preferred to stay in town with his father." The man replied, 
" You are not telling me the truth. Tell me where the lad 
is!" But she persisted in her statement, "He is left in town 
with his father." 

Then the man walked about in search of the lad, going 
even very near to where he was lying awake in the trench. 
But the leaves hid him, and his uncle did not discern that 
the ground had been disturbed. Returning to the woman, 
he said, "Good! you are telling the truth. I don't see the 
lad. But nOw I am ready to attend to you. You shall see." 
So he approached the woman to seize her. She was so para- 
lyzed with fear that she neither attempted to run away, nor, 
though her machete was lying near, did she lay hold of it. 
Even had she done so, she was too weak with her journey to 
defend herself. The man snatched up the babe that still was 
sleeping, and looking around for a rough, projecting root, 
violently flung the babe against it. It made no cry ; and both 
he and the mother supposed it was instantly killed. Then 
he drew his machete, which he had made very sharp, and 
began to cut and slash the woman. She pleaded and cried for 
help; but there was no help near. She fell, covered with 
wounds, and died on the spot. All this the lad saw and 
heard. After killing the mother, the man began again to 
search for the lad, but did not find him ; and, as it was now 
after midnight, he left the place to go back to town. 

Soon after he was gone, the lad, exhausted with terror and 
fatigue, fell asleep. But he awoke again in the early day- 
light. Arising from his trench, he went with grief and distress 
to see the two corpses. Looking at his mother's blood- 
covered form, he saw that she was dead. Looking at his 



292 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

baby brother lying on the root, he took up the little form, 
sobbing, " Only I am alive. Even this little child was not 
spared. Am I to go on my journey all alone ? " Examining 
the limp body still further, it seemed still to show signs of 
life; and he said to himself, "I think I will try to save 
it. I am strong enough to carry it to my mother's people, 
to whom I shall tell this whole story." 

So he took up the cloth in which his mother had carried 
the child, adjusted it for himself, placed the unconscious 
form in it, and started on his journey. A short distance 
beyond brought him to a brook. Before he crossed it, he 
stooped to take a drink of water. Then examining the 
little body again, he felt that it was not stiff and was 
still warm. Said he, "Ah! perhaps it has a little life! I 
better give it a drink." So he tried; and the baby drank. 
He rejoiced. " So perhaps it will be alive. I better bathe 
it." And he did so. Then he crossed the broo'k, and jour- 
neyed on. Before he reached his grandfather's village, he 
crossed another brook, and bathed the babe, and gave it a 
drink as at the first brook. 

On his arrival at the village the people were surprised 
to see him without his mother. His grandfather at once 
wanted to know his story and why he had come there alone. 
Said he, "Please, before I tell my story, try to save this 
baby." 

After the people had looked to the baby's needs and saw 
that it might live, they gathered together to listen to what 
the lad had to say. When they had heard his account, they 
started back with him to find his mother's corpse. They 
took it up and carried it to her husband's village, there 
to hold palaver over the death. As soon as they reached 
the village, instead of announcing themselves as visitors to 
the husband, they went straight to the brother-in-law's house. 
They found him sitting in the veranda. They laid the corpse 
at his feet. This so startled him that a look of guilt showed 
on his face. Looking at the party who had brought the 
corpse, he saw among them the lad ; and at once he felt sure 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 293 

that this lad had been a witness of his crime. He lost his 
self-control, and began to scold, " What do you put this thing 
at my feet for? Take it away ! " 

Then all the townspeople gathered around him, being 
horrified at the news of the woman's death. The husband 
called them all to a council, and the palaver was held at 
his house. There the grandfather and the lad told the 
whole story. 

The brother-in-law began to enter a denial; but the hus- 
band said, " No, you are guilty ! and because we are brothers, 
and we are one, the guilt is also mine ; and I will confess for 
you. You are guilty. Your actions show it. Why did you 
become so angry as soon as you saw the corpse at your feet? " 

But the wife's family said to the husband, "We have no 
quarrel with you. We want only the person who killed our 
sister, and a fine of money for our loss." 

Then the husband said, "You are right; this man killed 
her. Take him, and for a fine take his slaves and other prop- 
erty. He has deliberately deprived me of a wife, and my 
children of a mother. Take all he owns." It was so done; 
and the assemblage dispersed. 

VI. The Wizard and his Invisible Dog. 

(This, my informant asserted, actually happened at the 
town of Libreville, Gabun.) 

One night a young woman was alone in her house. She 
was married; but, that particular night, the husband was 
absent. 

After she had gone to her bed for the night, she slept, but 
not very soundly. Half awake, she thought she heard some- 
thing moving in the front reception-room (ikenga). She had 
lowered the lamp in her bedroom, but it still gave enough 
light for her to see. She slightly opened the mosquito-net 
on one side and began to look and listen. But she saw 
no one nor anything unusual in her room. But as the door 
between her bedroom and the reception-room was slightly 



294 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

ajar, she looked toward its opening, and thought she saw a 
figure moving in that room. She felt sure there was some 
one there. So she stepped softly out of the bed, and peeped 
through the narrow opening of the door. Sure enough, there 
was a man. 

She was frightened, but controlled herself. She was puz- 
zled to know how he had got into that room, whose outer 
door she knew she had fastened before she went to bed. She 
crept quietly back to her bed, and then began to shout, 
"Who is that? How did you get in ? I see you!" There 
was no answer. The figure ceased moving, and stood still. 
The woman again cried out, " Who are you ? When did you 
come in? What do you want?" The man replied in a low 
voice, "It is I! " She rejoined, " Who is 'I ' ? Are you only 
4 me ' ? Who are you ? How did you succeed in entering ? 
Go out! " So he apparently opened the door and went out. 
She was so frightened that she did not immediately follow 
him, nor did she make a public outcry. 

Awhile afterward she recovered self-control, and arose and 
went into the outer room, and assured herself that the out- 
side door was fast, as she had left it. She believed he had 
entered the closed door by witchcraft art. 

The next morning she told her village people the story ; 
but she was afraid to mention the man's name (for she knew 
who he was), because many people thought he possessed power 
as a wizard, and she feared he would revenge himself on her. 
She told his name only to her mother. 

Not long afterward he came again to her house when she 
was alone at night, but did not enter. He came to the out- 
side wall against which he knew her bedstead stood. Lying 
there, she could see his form through the cracks in the bam- 
boo wall. She saw this as she happened to awake from sleep. 
She saw his figure standing still, and she heard a sound as 
of the tinkling of a bell moving about, such as natives tie to 
the necks of their dogs in hunting. The wizard had brought 
with him this time a small invisible beast to whose neck the 
invisible but audible bell was attached; and she heard a 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 295 

sound along the bottom of the wall, as if the animal was 
scratching a hole for its master's entrance. This time she 
was so alarmed that she screamed aloud to the people of the 
village; and then, through the chinks in the wall, she saw 
passing by in the street the figure of the same man. 

The very next day the woman began to be sick of a fever. 
For several days she was quite ill, and people began to be 
alarmed for her. Her sickness grew very much worse. Her 
people sent for a Senegal man, living in Libreville, who had 
quite a reputation as a doctor in that kind of sickness. When 
this doctor came, she was able to speak only in a low voice, 
and she recounted to him what had happened. He asked her 
to mention the precise spot on which the man had stood out- 
side of the wall of her house. She described to her mother 
the particular spot, and the mother took the doctor to show 
him. He scraped up clay from the place and mixed it 
in a small bowl of cold water. He directed that after she 
had been given a bath morning and evening this muddy water 
should be rubbed over her body. She said that when it was 
thus rubbed over her skin, her flesh temporarily felt as if it 
was paralyzed. 

Her sickness continued more than a month, and then she 
recovered. Soon after her recovery the man who had at- 
tempted to enter her room, and who was suspected of hav- 
ing caused her sickness by witchcraft art, suddenly left 
Gabun, and went to another country. 

VII. Spirit-Dancing. 

Antyande, a Mpongwe woman of the town of Libreville, 
Gabun, is a leader of a company of ten or a dozen women in 
a certain native dance called a ivanga," which is performed 
only by women. Some dance it only as an exhibition of 
their gymnastic skill ; others mix with it fetich and witch- 
craft arts, and claim that their movements are under spirit 
power. Antyande, more than the other women of the com- 
pany, uses witchcraft in her performances. She seems almost 
to glide through the air, alighting on the knees of sit- 



296 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

ting spectators without giving them the impression of weight, 
gyrating on small stools without moving the stools from 
their position, and making many other wonderful physi- 
cal contortions in an exceedingly graceful and easy manner. 
She even goes to graveyards at night, accompanied by three 
or four men and women, to get what they call the spirits 
of the dead, It is said by some of the men who have gone 
there with her that they do not understand what she does, 
but that it is so very strange and awful that they are afraid. 
The reason why she goes for these abambo (ghosts) of the 
graves is that she may be spry and alert, and able to do 
with her body whatever she pleases. She claims also to 
be accompanied by a leopard and a bush-cat that are visible 
to her but not to others. As these animals are noted for 
their quick and agile movements, and are under her witch- 
power control, they are able to impart to her these qualities. 
In January, 1902, she was dancing her ivanga, and there 
was a woman among the spectators who had been drinking 
to the point of intoxication. In her foolishness she deter- 
mined to help Antyande by assuming to be directress to 
keep the spectators in order. But, being drunk, she could 
not do so ; she only made disorder. In attempting to make 
matters straight she only made them crooked. Antyande 
asked her to get out of her way. Many, also, of the spec- 
tators begged the woman to cease interfering ; but she would 
not, and finally she vexed Antyande by spoiling her move- 
ments in getting too close in front of her. Antyande' s patience 
was exhausted, and she suddenly revealed a secret that as- 
tonished many even of her intimate acquaintances, sajung, 
" Whoever is related to this drunken woman, please tell her 
to get out of my way while I am dancing, because my dance 
is not a mere gymnastic exercise. I have leopards and bush- 
cats about me, and if she comes too near me, and the tails 
of these animals should twist around her legs, then she will 
get a sickness : and if that happens, her people must not hold 
me responsible for it, for I have given you this warning." 
This surprised many of the people; for they had supposed 




Ekope of the Ivanga Daxce. — Gabun. 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 297 

she was nothing more than an unusually graceful dancer, 
and that her success was purely physical. Now, publicly, 
she admitted that the power in her limbs and body causing 
her graceful undulations was a supernatural one. So some 
of the women laid hold of the drunken woman, and induced 
her to get out of the way. 

While dancing, Antyande wears a wide belt called " ekope," 
which is made with white and red stripes, and adorned with 
fringes of small bells in bands like sleigh-bells. It is known 
that her ekope has been heard and seen moving as if in the 
rhythm of a dance in her own room when she was not visibly 
there. Those who heard the sound of its bells would think 
she was there practising the dance ; but when they went to 
look, they saw it moving, but did not see her. A few months 
afterward, a report came at night to the villages that Antyande 
was very much excited and could not sleep; that she had gone 
to her room for the ekope, and that it was not there. So she 
began to make a great fuss, and begged her associates to keep 
watch and go with her to search for the missing ekope. Some 
of these friends were willing ; others were not, and these went 
to their beds. She then went to other villages and told the 
people there: "My ekope has gone out on a promenade. 
Have you seen it ? " These people were among the chief 
dancers of her band. But they told her they did not know 
where the ekope was. So she began to ejaculate a prayer: 
" Oh, please, you went out for a walk ; come back to me, for 
if you do not return, then I am lost. It will be death to 
me." Just before daylight, as she was still wandering 
about with her friends, and singing ivanga songs to attract 
her ekope, suddenly she and two of her friends heard the 
tinkling of the bells among the bushes lining a certain road 
which passes by a Roman Catholic chapel. They all went in 
the direction of the sound of the bells, and entering a cluster 
of the bushes, they saw the ekope moving to and fro. 
She was so glad to see it, and she bade one of her com- 
panions to go and get it. But the woman was afraid, and 
refused, saying, " Me ! Oh, no ! Go and get it yourself ! " 



298 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

So she went to it, singing her ivanga song, seized it, and 
brought it to her house. 

As she is noted for her grace and skill in that particular 
dance, another woman, by name Ekamina, asked her to give 
her power such as hers, as she also wished to be leader of 
another band of ivanga dancers. Antyande assented, say- 
ing, "Well, do you want spirits with it?" The other 
replied, "Yes, I want two." So the two women, with a 
young man to escort them, went at night to the graves and 
obtained the two desired spirits. It is these which give them 
spirit power. When under their influence, their bodies are 
thrilled with a new essence which makes them very light 
and causes them to act and speak as if insane. The two 
women came back to Antyande 's village, and she performed 
all the magic ceremonies that Ek&mina wanted. 

Some time after this, when Ekamina had practised much 
and had danced publicly several times, people began to say 
to her that she danced very well, and soon she was invited 
to give exhibitions in various places. 

One day it happened that the two women had arranged 
to dance on the same night, each with her own party, at 
villages quite distant from each other. Antyande asked 
Ekamina to give up her play for that night and join with 
her, "for," said she, "I want to make mine grand; and you 
wait for yours another day." But Ekamina was not willing. 
Antyande tried to get her to change her mind, and was very 
much displeased because she refused. Ekamina said, " I will 
not give up, for my dance is by special invitation at An- 
wondo village, so I have to go." (Libreville is three miles 
long; one end is called "Glass," and Anwondo is at the 
other end.) Ekamina lived at Glass, and on her way to 
Anwondo she had to pass the village of Antyande. The 
latter said to herself, " As Ek&mina is not willing to do as 
I wish, and I was the one who gave her this power, I will 
watch her as she passes, and see what I will do." So, when 
Ekamina passed at night with her party to Anwondo, Anty- 
ande watched her chance as Ekamina neared her. She went 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 299 

behind her, and did some magic act which would make the 
latter powerless to dance and not be aware of her loss of 
power. When Ekamina reached Anwondo and commenced 
her play, she was not able to dance at all. She tried till 
midnight, and failed. She suspected that Antyande was the 
cause of the failure, for the latter had not been friendly since 
their unsatisfactory talk. So she took a portion of her party 
that same night back to Antyande's village, told the lat- 
ter her trouble, and begged her, " Please, if you have taken 
away the power, give it back, so I may finish the dance to- 
night." Antyande said, "No; you would not listen to me. 
I am a chief dancer, and you are praised as the same. Go 
and dance ! " Ekamina said, " But please give me back the 
power; I am not able to dance without it." Antyande re- 
plied, "No, go to the graveyard and get other spirits there 
for yourself." So there was no dance done by Ekamina that 
night. 

VIII. Asiki, ok the Little Beings. 

People believe that Asiki (singular "Isiki") were once 
human beings, but that wicked men, wizards and witches, 
or other persons who assert that they have memba (witchcraft 
powers), caught them when they were children and could 
not defend themselves, nor could their cries for help be 
heard when playing among the bushes on the edge of the 
forest. These wicked persons cut off the ends of the chil- 
dren's tongues, so that they can never again speak or inform 
on their captors. They carry them away, and hide them in 
a secret place where they cannot be found. There they are 
subjected to a variety of witchcraft treatment that alters 
their natures so that they are no longer mortal. This treat- 
ment checks their entire physical, mental, and moral growth. 
They cease to remember or care for their former homes or 
their human relatives, and they accept all the witchcraft of 
their captors. Even the hair of their head changes, grow- 
ing in long, straight black tresses down their backs. They 
wear a curious comb-shaped ornament on the back of their 



300 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

head. It is not stiff or capable of being used as a comb, and 
is made of some twisted fibre resembling hair. The Asiki 
value it almost as a part of their life. 

These Asiki will sometimes be seen walking in paths on 
dark nights, and people meet them coming toward them. It 
is believed that in their meeting, if a person is fearless by 
natural bravery, or by fetich power as a wizard or witch, 
and dares to seize the Isiki and snatch away the "comb," the 
possession of this ornament will bring him riches. But who- 
ever succeeds in obtaining that " comb " will not be allowed 
to remain in peaceful possession of it. The poor Isiki will 
be seen at night wandering about the spot where its treasure 
was lost, trying to obtain it again. 

It happened in the year 1901 that there was a report, even 
in civilized Gabun, about these Asiki, — that two of them 
were seen near a certain place on the public road at that part 
of the town of Libreville known as the "Plateau," where 
live most of the French traders and government officers. A 
certain Frenchman, who is known as a freemason, in re- 
turning from his 8 p. M. dinner at his boarding-house to his 
dwelling-place, observed that a small figure was walking on 
one side of the road, keeping pace with him. He accosted 
it, "Who are you?" There was no answer; only the figure 
kept on walking, advancing and retreating before him. 

Also, a few nights later, a Negro clerk of a white trader 
met this small being on that very road, and near the spot 
where the Frenchman had met it, and it began to chase the 
Negro. He ran, and came frightened to his employer's office, 
and told him what had happened. His employer did not 
believe him, laughed at his fears, and told him he was not 
telling the truth. The very next night the Frenchman, the 
trader, and other white men and Negro women were sit- 
ting in conversation. The trader told the story of his clerk, 
whereupon the Frenchman said, "Your clerk did not lie; he 
told the truth. I have myself met that small being two or 
three times, but I made no effort to catch it." The women 
told him of the comb-ornament which Asiki were believed to 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 301 

wear, and of the pride with which Asiki regarded it, and the 
value it would be to any one who could obtain it. Then the 
Frenchman replied, " As the little being is so small, the very 
next time I see it I will try to catch it and bring it here, 
so that you can see it and know that this story is actually 
true." 

On a subsequent night they two — the Frenchman and the 
trader — went out to see whether they could meet the Isiki. 
They did not meet with it that night; but a few evenings 
later the Frenchman went alone, and met the Isiki near the 
place where it had first been seen. The Frenchman ran 
toward it and tried to catch it; but it being very agile 
eluded his grasp. But, though he failed to seize its body, 
he succeeded in catching hold of its "comb," and snatched it 
away, and ran rapidly with it toward his house. It did not 
consist of any hard material as a real comb, but was made of 
strands resembling the Isiki's hair, and braided into a comb- 
like shape. The little being was displeased, and ran after 
him in order to recover the ornament. Having no tongue, it 
could not speak, but holding out one hand pleadingly and 
with the other motioning to the back of its head, it made 
pathetic sounds in its throat, thus inarticulately begging that 
its treasure should be given back to it. On nearing the light 
of the Frenchman's house it retreated, and he showed the 
ornament to other white men and some, native women. (So 
positive was my informant that the names of these men and 
women were mentioned to me.) He said to the trader, "You 
doubted your clerk's story. Have you ever seen anything 
like this in all your life ? " They all said they had not. It 
was reported that many other persons hearing of it went there 
to see it. 

From that night the little being was often seen by other 
Negroes. It was always holding out its hand, and seem- 
ingly pleading for the return of its "comb." This made the 
Negroes afraid to pass on that road at night. The French- 
man also often met it; it did not chase him, but followed 
slowly, pleading with its hands in dumb show, and occasion- 



302 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

ally making a grunting sound in its throat. This it did so 
persistently and annoyingly that the Frenchman was wearied 
with its begging, and determined that the next night he would 
yield up the "comb." But he went prepared with scissors. 
He found the little being following him. He stopped, and it 
approached. He held out his hand with the ornament. As 
the Isiki jumped forward to snatch at it, the Frenchman tried 
to lay hold of its body ; but it was so very agile that, though 
it had come so near as to be able to take the comb from the 
Frenchman's hand, it so quickly twisted itself aside as to 
elude his grasp. He however succeeded in getting his hands 
in its long hair, and snipped off a lock with his scissors. The 
Isiki ran away with its recovered treasure, and did not seem 
to resent the loss of a portion of its hair. This hair the 
Frenchman is said to have shown to his companions at their 
next evening conversation, and I was given to understand 
that he had sent it to France. It was straight, not woolly, 
and long. 

These Asiki are supposed not to die, and it is also believed 
that they can propagate; but so complete has been the par- 
ent's change under witchcraft power that the Isiki babe will 
be only an Isiki and cannot grow up to be a human being. 

It is asserted that Asiki are now made by a sort of creative 
power (just as leopards and bush-cats are claimed to be made, 
and used invisibly) by witch doctors. 

I am only writing these tales, I am not explaining them. 
Some of the statements in the above story are too circumstan- 
tial to be denied. But there is a wide margin for uncertainty 
as to what one might see after the conviviality of an 8 p.m. 
West African dinner. In my sudden leaving of Gabun in 
June, 1903, 1 had not time to interrogate the men and women 
named as having seen the Isiki's tress of hair. 

IX. Okove. 

(The incidents of this story really occurred, and indepen- 
dent of the fetich belief in okove power, are true. At the 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 303 

request of my native informant the names of the two tribes 
are suppressed, for the sake of the living descendants of the 
two kings.) 

There was an old king of one of the principal tribes of 
West Equatorial Africa who had great power and was held 
in great respect and fear ; there was none other his equal. 

He had brothers and cousins. One of these cousins had a 
servant, a slave, who had been bought from an interior tribe. 
It happened that this man had nob always been a slave, but 
in the tribe from which he had been sold he was a freeman. 
The charge on which he had been sold by his own tribe was 
that of sorcery and witchcraft murder, the death penalty for 
which had been commuted to sale into slavery. He was 
deeply versed in a mystery of a certain fetich or magic power 
called «' Okove." He possessed it so powerfully that no one 
was able to overcome him in contests of strength, and people 
were greatly afraid of him. 

So his owners intended to get rid of him by selling him 
out of the country. To do this, they planned to catch him 
in the daytime ; for he exercised his okove power chiefly at 
night, when he could change himself into a powerful being 
ready to overcome any one who should resist him. 

One night when this great king, who also possessed the 
okove power (though it was not generally known), went out 
to inspect, he saw a big tall man walking up and down near 
his premises. The king said to him, " Ho ! who are you ? " 
The man answered, " It is I." The king asked, " Who is I ? " 
The man replied daringly, " I have already told you that I am 
I." So the king asked again, " Who are you ? Where did 
you come from ? And what are you doing here ? " The man 
said, " I go everywhere, and do what I please at other people's 
places, and so I have come here." The king commanded 
him, " But, no, not at this place. This is mine. Go back 
to your own ! " 

The slave gave answer, " No ! that is not my habit. No 
one can master me ! " 



304 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

The king again ordered him, " Go ! " He flatly refused, 
" No ! " The king then said plainly, " Are you not willing to 
leave my premises ? " 

He replied, " No, I never turn away from any one. I go away 
when I please. When I am ready, I will go back to my 
place." At this the king, restraining himself, slowly said, 
" Be it so ! " and turned away, leaving the slave standing 
in his yard. 

The next day the king sent word for his cousin the owner 
of the slave to come ; to whom, when he had arrived at the 
house, the king told how he had seen the man at night. And 
he inquired, "What does he do? Why does he leave his 
place on the plantation and come to my place at night ? " The 
cousin was surprised to hear this, exclaiming, " So ! indeed ! 
he comes here at night ? " Then he went back to his house, 
and calling the slave, asked him about this matter. " Do you 
go around at night, even to the king's place ? " The man 
said, " Yes." His master said, " Why do you do that ? Do 
you hear of other lower-caste people daring to go to the king's 
at night?" He answered, "No; but it is I who do as I 
please." His master told him, "No; you better return to 
the plantation, and live among the other slaves." He replied 
"I will go, but not now." His master asked him, " But what 
are you waiting for ? " He only repeated, " Yes ; but not 
now." 

The very next night, on the king's going out as usual, 
he found this slave again at his place, and said to him, " So ! 
you here again ? " The man replied, " Yes ; just what I told 
you last night, that I do what I please, and I can master any- 
body." Then the king said, " I warn you plainly, clear off 
from my place ! " He replied, " No, I do not intend to clear 
out ; but I am ready for a fight." 

The king asked, " You really want a fight with me?" The 
man answered," Yes, I am ready for it." Said the king, "It 
is well." 

The fight began, each with his full okove power. In 
such contests, the power is able to change the contestants' 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 305 

bodies to many forms. The slave was quick in his use of 
them. His first change was to the form of a big gorilla. 
This also the king met. As the fight went on, the next 
form was into that of leopards. The fight went on, with 
frequent changes ; the slave always being the first to change. 
After a while the slave seemed to be growing tired, and the 
king asked him, u Are you through ? " He answered, " No, 
only resting." Again the fight was resumed. Finally, the 
slave took an eagle's form ; the king did the same. 

Presently the slave seemed to hesitate, and the king said, 
" You said you wanted a fight. Well, let us go on with it." 
They continued ; but the slave seemed to be exhausted, and 
the king said, " Now, are you willing to leave the place ? " 
He answered, " No ; my fatigue is not yet so great as to make 
me leave your place." The king had held his power in re- 
serve, and had been tolerant of the man's audacity ; but he 
now resumed his human form, took his gun (the slave had 
none), and aiming it, off it went, and wounded him. Being 
wounded, the slave had to acknowledge that he was overcome, 
and he had to go. When morning came, the slave was not 
able to get up to go about his work, and remained in bed. 
The gun-shot wound was a small one, and he was conscious 
that he was dying of some other cause. He sent some one to 
the master's house to ask him to come. When his master 
came, he said, " Ah ! master ! I have something to say to you. 
Please plead for me ! " The master said, u Plead for you ! 
For what ? " The slave then told him, " I went around last 
night to the king's place. He told me to leave, and I was 
not willing to do so. So we had a great fight. And I am 
conquered. But please plead for me, that he may make me 
well." 

The master replied, " Did I not advise you not to go there, 
but rather to stay at your plantation? " He assented. " But 
please plead, and I will stay at the plantation." 

The master answered, "I do not think the king will be 
willing to help you." Nevertheless, being a cousin, he went 
privately to the king, and told him all that the slave had told 

20 



306 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

him. The king refused, saying, " No, I am not going to do 
anything for him. He must die." The next day the slave 
was dead. 

(Another illustration of that king's okove power was 
narrated to me.) 

There had been ill-feeling between this king's tribe and 
an adjacent inferior tribe who had killed two of the king's 
chief men without cause, coming suddenly upon them at night 
in their fishing-camp. The king's people were very much 
troubled about it, and asked to be led to war. But the old 
king said, " You young people don't know anything. If you 
go to war, there will be much blood shed on both sides. 
Leave the matter with me. I will attend to it myself." 

So at night he went by himself to the town of the king of 
the offending tribe, and remained there waiting in ambush on 
the path. Early next morning four of the women belonging 
to that town had gone to their gardens with their baskets to 
get food." The old king followed them secretly. After all 
of them had filled their baskets, two lifted them upon their 
backs and started to return to their town. The other two 
were just stooping (as is the custom in lifting burdens, 
leaning forward on one knee in order to place their backs 
against the basket, with a strap passing around the basket 
and over their foreheads), when the king came behind them 
and struck their necks with his okove. They instantly died 
in that stooping position. 

The two women who had gone on ahead reached their town 
without knowing what had happened to the other two. They 
waited in town a long time for the two absent ones to come. 
But when they did not make their appearance, the people 
began to ask those women about the other two. They said 
they knew nothing about the delay, only that they had left 
them ready to come and preparing to lift their baskets. The 
townspeople, anxious because it was late in the day, went 
out to search, for the women. They found them on the path, 
dead by their baskets. They examined their bodies for some 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 307 

mark or wound or sign of a blow. There was none. This 
very much perplexed them, for they did not suspect the cause 
of their death. They carried the dead bodies to town. The 
next night the king went again to that same town, and he 
happened to meet the other king at the boat-landing of the 
town. So the old king made complaint Ho the other why the 
servants of the latter had killed his two chiefs. The other made 
no reply, having no justification of what his people had done. 

Then the old king said, " As your people have done this, 
there is war between us " ; and he struck him with his okove. 
And he added, "Do you know that I have already begun war 
with your people ? Did you not find two of your women dead 
yesterday at your gardens? I killed them. But I am not 
through with you. I want you to pay a fine, and I want the 
man who killed my two chiefs, for the lives of the two women 
are not equivalent to those of my two chiefs." 

The other king felt he was conquered by some unseen power, 
and did not resist. He agreed to give up the murderer and 
pay a fine. The next day he had the murderer caught and 
brought before a council. He told them that the old king of 
the other tribe wanted the life of that man and a sum of 
money for the lives of his two chiefs. 

They began to collect on the spot goods and food of all 
kinds, and many things of little value, with which to make 
simply the appearance of a full canoe. They tied the pris- 
oner, put him in the canoe, and went with him and the 
goods to the old king. He received them. 

But at night he went again to the other king, and began to 
rebuke him, saying that what he had sent was not sufficient. 
The other made a protest : " I have given you enough, — the 
lives of the two women, the one man, and goods equivalent 
to two more lives. I have thus given you five for your two." 

But the old king, in tribal pride, reckoned the sex and so- 
cial position of his two men greater than any five of an inferior 
tribe, and said, t4 How dare you speak to me like that ? You 
shall surely die !. " He struck him with his okove, and went 
away. 



308 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

The next day the other king was not able to leave his bed 
and sent for many of his people to come, saying that he had a 
special word to speak to them. They came, and he told them 
all about the death of the two women, and all that had 
occurred between him and the old king. "And now," he 
said, " I am dying. We are overcome. It is useless to resist. 
I want you to remember, as long as the world stands, never 
to fight or quarrel with the tribe of that king." 

Then he turned his face to the wall and died. 

X. The Family Idols. 

(To a village on the St. Thome or left bank of Gabun Bay, 
or " River," away up a winding mangrove stream, and on the 
edge of the forest that was broken by pieces of prairie, I went, 
in February, 1903, to visit a "friend, a sick Christian woman, 
who was in the care of a relative of hers named Adova. 

There were only five huts in the village. At the first one 
from the edge of the prairie, which was assigned to me in 
which to sleep, on a bench outside under the low eaves, was a 
roughly carved wooden idol, about fourteen inches in height. 
From the dressing of the hair of its head, I supposed it to be 
intended for a female. Its loins were covered with a narrow 
strip of cloth. Near it was what could scarcely be recognized 
as a dog, its head looking more like a pig's, and its tail more 
like an alligator's. The figures were chalked and painted; 
and near them were a few gourd utensils for eating and drink- 
ing, and some medicinal barks. 

Subsequently, at night, in a curtained-on corner of my 
room, I saw three low baskets, in each of which was a pair of 
wooden images not six inches high. They were chalked, and 
adorned with strips of various-colored cloth. In each basket 
also was a wooden hourglass-shaped article that seemed in- 
tended for a double bell. Pieces of medicinal barks filled up 
the spaces in the baskets. The images were relics of ceremo- 
nies held over twins born long ago in the family. 

At the other end of the village, in a very small roughly 
built hut, open on one side, were two other idols, — one, a male, 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 309 

standing and chalked and painted. The female in an or- 
namented box was not visible ; near them was a nondescript 
animal. 

The story of these idols, as told me by my friend (who has 
since died), is more especially connected with this pair.) 

Part I. OKASI. 

It was made by a Loango man, a fetich doctor, very many 
years ago. The Mpongwe family that to-day owns these 
relics had sent sonth to Loango, to the Fiat or Ba-Vili tribe, 
to bring to Gabun for this special purpose this celebrated 
magician. 

When he arrived, the chief of the family who had sum- 
moned him went with him off to the forest, with all the 
medicines, and so forth, which the Loango man had brought. 
This occurred on that same left side of the " river " where I 
was visiting. 

The magician began to explain everything in the way of 
directions about the medicines that were to be put into the 
hollow of the abdomen of the idol (and which to-day is still 
covered by a small round mirror fastened over it). After ex- 
plaining all these matters, he gave also all the orunda (pro- 
hibitions), viz. : The idol must not be allowed to fall on its 
face ; it must have a small hut for shelter from rain and 
sun : it must be given a light at night, at least of coals of 
fire. After this, he began to carve the idol. After making 
the male of the pair, and before making its female, he made a 
duplicate of the male, exactly like it, except that it was only 
an imitation without any magic power ; and, instead of med- 
icines, only powdered charcoal was put into the hollow in 
its abdomen, which, however, was to be covered with glass, 
exactly as the real one. 

When these two idols were finished, the two men, the magi- 
cian and the chief of the family, went with them far into the 
forest. The Loango said, " I will put these here, and when 
we go back to your town I will give the power of olaga [a 
certain kind of spirit] to one of your women. If she receives 



310 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

it properly, she herself, without knowing our path, will come 
to this forest, and will make no mistake in choosing the 
real idol from the imitation ; and she will bring it to me in the 
town." (It is a rule with the native sorcerers that if the one 
who aspires to the power should make a mistake in this 
choosing, she must pay a fine of from $60 to $100.) 

When all was arranged, the Loango man said, "Now let us 
go back to town." So they turned back. But when they 
had gone half of the way, he said to himself, "This Ga- 
bun man now knows everything, and where the idols are, and 
which is the real one. It is his sister who wishes to receive 
the power ; he will go and tell her everything, and she will 
make no mistake, not by reason of her possessing power, but 
by his private information." So the Loango said, " Go you to 
the town, await me there ; I will come soon." And he turned 
back into the forest by himself, took up the two idols from 
where he had laid them down, went in another direction and 
hid them there, and then returned to town. 

He then gave the power to the woman, and said, " Go 
and bring the olaga." She started, went with only a little 
power, and was going at random ; but before she had gone 
half-way, she came under the full power. Then she turned 
her face right and left, and gave an olaga yell, seeking to 
know which way the power would lead her. At once then 
she knew which was the way ; and she went running and 
shouting frantically, under the influence of this power, to the 
precise spot, and took up the real idol, making no mistake 
about the imitation one. Holding it aloft, she returned, shout- 
ing and dancing, under the Delphic frenzy. She entered the 
town singing and dancing in the street, and then laid the idol 
at the feet of the Loango man. He took it, and knew it was 
the right one. He then went to the forest and brought also 
the other, the duplicate. When he returned, he went with 
it and the real one to the ogwerina (backyard) to show to the 
Gabun man the slight difference in the two (which he knew by 
a private mark). In doing this he had to take off the little 
mirrors and show the difference between the medicines and 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 311 

the charcoal. And he again closed the mirrors. Then, just 
to test the woman, the magician said to her, " Go and bring 
me the idol I have left in the ogwerina." She went there, 
still under the power, and with a frenzied scream seized the 
right one and brought it to him. He was half glad and 
half disappointed; for had she mistaken, he would have 
received more money. 

Then the townspeople held a great dance, and the Loango 
taught them special songs for the olaga. The female of the 
pair of idols had also been made about the same time as the 
male, but with no special ceremony. 

All being finished, the magician named his fee for his ser- 
vices, was paid, and went back to Loango. 

This idol was intended as a family fetich, to protect the 
family at night, and to kill any one who would attempt to in- 
jure any of the members. The name of this male of the pair 
was Okasi. 

The name of the other one, that was under the eaves of the 
hut in which I slept, was Kaka-gi-bala-dyambo-gi-bala-ve. 
These are Shekyani words, and mean " A-great-log-may-rot- 
but-a-spoken-word-dies-never." That meant that if an enemy 
came and injured any one in the town, the wrong would never 
be forgotten and would surely be avenged. That idol might 
almost stand for a statue of Vengeance. 

The above proverb comes from a tale of a cruel old Shekyani 
chief. 

Part II. BARBARITY. 

Once there was a very powerful Shekyani chief named 
Ogwedembe. He had many sons and daughters and slaves 
and slave children and nieces and nephews. He had also 
a brother. His principal delight was in fighting and killing. 

Ogwedembe used to go out on excursions, and would say to 
his company, " Now we are out of town." That meant that 
all restraint was cast aside, and that he was ready to kill the 
first person they might meet, even without a cause. 

One day when they were out and were passing through a 
thick forest, they saw a man up a tree who had come for 



312 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

palm-wine and had filled two of the gourd-bottles used for 
that purpose. So Ogwedembe shouted to him, " Indeed! what 
are you doing there ? Have you not heard that Ogwedembe 
and his brother are out of town ? Come down quickly and 
meet us here ! " 

The man did not dare disobey, and came down. Ogwe- 
dembe took the gourds, and said, " You may have one ; I and 
my brother will drink the other." After the drinking, Ogwe- 
dembe stripped the man of his clothing, leaving him standing 
naked and trembling. In his terror the man did not attempt 
to escape. 

Ogwedembe drew his knife, and repeated his questions, 
"Who told you to come here? Did you not know that 
Ogwedembe and his brother were out in the forest ? Now I 
will fix you ; and you can carry the news to your town that 
Ogwedembe and his brother are in the forest." 

He then seized a portion of the man's body, and with his 
butcher-knife horribly mutilated him. The man started, 
bleeding, to go to his town, and died on the way. 

The section of country in which Ogwedembe's portion of 
the Shekyani tribe lived was south of Gabun, toward the 
Orungu people at the mouth of the Nazareth branch of the 
Ogowe River. Sometimes he and his brother would travel 
in their war canoes all the way from their place, and, passing 
Gabun, would go on northward to attack the Benga of Cape 
Esterias without cause and in sheer ruthlessness. 

Some of his daughters and sisters were married to Mpongwe 
chiefs at Gabun. At times his daughters and nieces would 
go and visit him. They would be received with firing of 
guns and other great demonstrations, and on leaving would 
be laden with presents. 

About twenty years ago one of his sisters, named Akanda, 
died in the prime of life. She lived at Gabun, her husband 
a Mpongwe. (She was the mother of Adova, my hostess, 
who is apparently about sixty years of age, and has a younger 
brother apparently about thirty years of age.) So, when that 
sister died, Ogwedembe came to Gabun, on the St. Thom£ 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 313 

side, to the funeral. My sick friend happened to be there at 
the time (for, by family marriage, she is a cousin to Adova) 
and saw the old chief. 

Ogwedembe, according to native custom, demanded of the 
husband a fine for his sister's death (as if due to lack of 
proper care of her). When that was paid, as a sign that 
no ill-will was retained, Ogwedembe was to give the widower 
another wife. 

During this discussion Ogwedembe kept saying, "I wish 
my sister had not been married to a Mpongwe, for it is not 
your custom to shed blood for this cause. But I feel a 
great desire to kill some one. If this had been a Shekyani 
marriage, I would have gone from town to town killing as I 
chose." The Mpongwe replied, "But we have no such cus- 
tom." He answered, "Yes, I know that. I only said what 
I would like to do, though your tribal custom will not allow 
me to do it." 

His demand of a fine being finally yielded to and paid, , 
to show his peaceful intentions, he gave the husband one 
of his daughters, a widow who had with her two children, 
— a son and a daughter, — and who afterward bore him 
other children. 

Ogwedembe 's bloody instincts were suppressed at that 
funeral, and he remained awhile after the close of the 
mourning ceremonies, making friendly visits among his 
Mpongwe sons-in-law, and then went back to his Shekyani 
country. 

A short time after that the eldest daughter of that woman 
Akanda (my hostess Adova) and her husband Owondo visited 
Ogwedembe. He made a great welcome for them, with danc- 
ing and rejoicing of various kinds. Every day he sent his 
people to fish and hunt, to obtain food for Adova and the 
children she had with her. 

Before Adova left, Ogwedembe called his principal wife 
and his grandchildren, and said, "When I die, you who are 
here in Shekyani, do not remain here, but go to Gabun and 
live with Akanda's children all the rest of your life." When 



314 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

lie finally died, they obeyed and came to St. Thome, of Gabun, 
bringing their idols with them. 

The one female image that was under the eaves of the house 
in which I slept was for guarding their families ; but the three 
sets of twins were to prevent their mothers from becoming 
barren. 

Part III. THE RIGHT OF SANCTUARY. 

(It was an ancient and universal custom that a refugee, by 
clasping the knees of the king of any other tribe, could claim 
his protection. The king was bound to accept the claim. 
The obligation he thus assumed was sacred.) 

While Adova was there at Shekyani country, visiting 
Ogwedembe, there came to him an Orungu man with a little 
slave boy, carrying a box. As soon as they entered the town, 
both of them came to Ogwedembe, and kneeling and clasping 
his feet, claimed his protection, and promised voluntarily to 
be under his authority. 

The old chief, without asking the cause of their flight or 
their reason for coming to him, assented, and summoned the 
town to make the Ukuku (Spirit-Society of Law) ceremony 
of installing the man and his slave boy as members of their 
Shekyani tribe. 

Adova and her husband were very kind to this adopted 
"brother," and he at once became exceedingly intimate 
with them. 

At night this new man had been assigned to the house 
occupied by Ogwedembe, in a room near him, so that he 
could watch him that he should not run away, now that he 
belonged to Ukuku. But it was not known that this man 
possessed all the power of nyemba (sorcery). Ogwedembe 
also had power for righting, and a certain amount of knowl- 
edge that warned him not to be deceived by sorcerers. 

After two days, on the third night, this man rose, and tried 
to go to Ogwedembe's room, to put some witchcraft medicine 
on him. But Ogwedembe saw him coming, rose, seized his 
staff, walked toward the man in the darkness, and struck him 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 315 

violently on the head. The man fell. But neither of them 
uttered any word, nor made any outcry. 

Very early in the morning Ogwedembe got up, went out, 
and sat on the veranda of his house. He called to Adova, 
"Come, I want to tell you something." She came, and he 
said, " I had a bad dream last night. If any one comes to 
you to-day to ask you to make medicine for a sore head, 
do not do it." "Who is it?" she asked. He refused. 
"No, I will not tell you. But I know that before to-day is 
over some one will come to you, but do not help him." 

The Orungu got up late that day and looked and felt dull. 
When he left his room, he sent his boy to call Adova. The 
boy went. She came to him. He said, "Can't you find 
medicine for a headache? I did not sleep well. My head 
pains too much." She said, "I do not know a medicine for 
that kind of headache." The old chief was sitting near, and, 
looking significantly at the Orungu, said to Adova, "Yes, 
that is right." 

The next night the man said, " I do not wish to sleep here 
to-night. I will go to an adjacent village, and will be back 
in the morning." "Well, go," assented Ogwedembe, "but 
be sure to be back in the morning." And the man said, 
"Yes." 

Scarcely had he left the town to go to the other village, 
when there came to Ogwedembe three people from a certain 
Orungu town carrying a message from their Orungu chief, 
thus: "The chief sent us, saying, 'Please give up this man 
who came to you and who claimed your protection. Give 
up the man. You do not know his habits; they are the 
habits of a worm that in eating spoils only the best. He, 
with his sorcery, always aims at killing the greatest. If you 
do not give him up, there will be war; for our chief has had 
this same demand made on him from a third chief whose 
people this man has been killing, and our chief will have 
to make war with you.' " 

Ogwedembe laughed. " You say ' war ' to me ? That is 
nothing to me. You cannot do it. War cannot touch me." 



316 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

When the message of the Orungu chief was being sent to 
Ogwedembe, some of the attendants on the delegation had 
awaited half-way on the route, and only the three had 
brought the message. Ogwedembe said to these three mes- 
sengers, "Go and call your chief, and we will talk about 
it." 

The chief came. (All this while the man was away at the 
other village, not having kept his promise to return.) 

Ogwedembe said to the Orungu chief, "It is impossible. 
The law is sacred. I will not give him up." But in his 
heart he felt, " I am protecting a sorcerer who has tried to 
kill me; better I take the money for his extradition, and 
send him away." He and the chief went on discussing. 
The point was made that the sorcerer having himself broken 
his obligation, by attempting to injure his adopted father, 
relieved that father of his Ukuku duty of protection. 

Ogwedembe began to yield, and to name the number of 
slaves that should be given him as the price of giving up 
the man. The Orungu chief demurred to the price : " It is 
too much! " So Ogwedembe brought down the price to six 
slaves, — three slaves, and three bundles of goods equal to 
the price of three slaves. And it was so settled. Then 
the Orungu chief said, " I will go in haste to my town to 
get you the goods ; but as to the three slaves, this man's boy 
must be counted as one of them." 

There was a dispute over this, Ogwedembe claiming that 
the boy was not guilty of any crime, and that his right to 
protection still existed. The Orungu insisted that the boy, 
being a slave, must follow the fortunes of his master, must 
be extradited as one with him, and then would of their own 
will be released by them from the penalty of his master's 
guilt. Ogwedembe consented. So the Orungu chief and 
his people went to get the goods, on the promise that 
Ogwedembe would have the man caught and ready to be 
delivered to them. 

At once Ogwedembe sent word to the man to fulfil his 
promise of returning to the town, and told his sons to be 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 317 

ready early next day to have the man caught and tied, ready 
for delivery on arrival of the goods. 

Next day Ogwedembe, seeing the man coming to him, 
came out of his house to meet him, and speaking ewiria 
(hidden meaning), called out to his people, "Sons, have 
you tied up the bundle of bush-deer meat?" "Oh yes, 
father, we '11 have it ready just now," as they came running 
to him. Then they suddenly fell upon the man, dragged 
him inside the house, began to strip of! his clothing, 
and tied him. He at once knew that there was no mercy, 
and he did not resist; but he said to his boy, "Call me 
Adova and her husband." 

But she knew he was naked, so she told her husband to go 
and hear what the man had to say. Owondo went, and the 
man said, "Owondo, I have no friends here; only you and 
Adova have been kind to me, so I call you my friend. 
Untie this small strip of cloth I have about my waist. I 
have four silver dollars there. I am going to die. These 
dollars are of no use to me ; you and your wife take them. 
My box is in Adova's care ; she must have the few things in 
it." So Owondo untied the girdle, took the money, and 
went out. 

Shortly afterward the Orungu people came, bringing the 
goods and slaves, and took away the man. He was taken 
by the three messengers to the half-way camp, where they 
had left their attendants. There were no houses there for 
shelter, and only their mosquito-nets as tents. They stopped 
there with the intention of passing the night, and next day 
of going on to their Orungu town. 

When it came evening they began to prepare their sleep- 
ing-places, and at bedtime one by one they went to lie 
down. A large branch from an overhanging tree fell very 
near the bed of one of the Orungu leaders, which was ad- 
joining that of the sorcerer. So they all said, " Ah ! we see 
what is being done by his arts. If this has begun so soon, 
who knows what will happen before morning ? Let us start 
at once." 



318 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

So they all made ready that very night, and went out of 
the forest, down to the beach, and got into their boat (as 
they had come part of the way by sea). 

Not long after they had started the sea became very rough. 
Soon the boat capsized, broke to pieces, and all their goods 
were lost. They all escaped ashore, but the sorcerer was 
missing. They waited on the beach until daylight, and 
then found his loin cloth washed ashore. (His hands had 
been tied.) l They believed that he had caused the storm, 
and was willing to die with them in the general destruction 
rather than survive to be put to death by the torture to which 
sorcerers were usually subjected. 

So these people sent back word to Ogwedembe and to the 
nearer villages to let them know what had happened to them, 
and they returned to their Orungu country by land. 

The little slave boy, who had been left with Ogwedembe 
as one of the three to be given as the price of extradition, 
was shortly afterward given by him as a present to the sick 
friend I was visiting that day. She stated that he was a 
most faithful servant and affectionate attendant on her infant 
daughter. He stayed with her, and died in her service a few 
years later, about 1883; and she mourned for him, for she 
had treated him, not as a slave, but as a son. 

XI. Unago and Ekela-Mbengo. 

(In the presence of theosophy, telepathy, thought-trans- 
ference, astrophysics, and wireless telegraphy, the following 
Benga legend has at least a standing-place. It was written 
more than forty years ago by an educated native in the Benga 
dialect. I translate it into English, preserving some of the 
native idiom.) 

Unago and Ekela were great friends. They lived, Unago 
at Mbini in Eyo (Benito River); Ekela at JekS in Muni 
(the river Muni, opposite Elobi islands in Corisco Bay. The 
two rivers are at least forty miles apart; Ekela is supposed 
to make the journey in two hours.) 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 319 

They were accustomed, if one killed a wild animal, to 
send for the other. One day Unago killed a hog. Then he 
sent for his friend Ekela. He at Mbini said, "Oh, Chum 
Ekela! start you out very early in the morning hither. 
Come to eat a feast of pig." And his children would say, 
"Father, your friend at JekS, and you right here, will he 
hear?" Said he, "Yes, he will hear." And so Ekela, off 
there, would say to his children, "Do you hear how my 
friend is calling to me ? " His children answered, " We do 
not hear." Says he, "Yes, my friend has called me to 
eat pig there to-morrow." 

Before daybreak Ekela takes his staff and his fly-brush and 
starts. When the sun is at the point of shining at Corisco, he 
reaches Mbini. Unago says to his children, " Did I not say 
to you that he can hear? " 

And so they eat the feast ; the feast ended, they tell nar- 
ratives. In the afternoon Ekela says, " Chum, I 'm going 
back." Unago says, "Yes." 

Having left him after escorting him part of the way, this 
one goes on, and that one returns. When Ekela, going on 
and on, reaches clear to Jeke, then day darkens. When his 
children see the lunch which he brings, then they believe that 
he has been at Mbini. 

A Proverb: Manga Ma Ekela. 

(Manga means "the sea"; secondarily, "the sea-beach"; 
thirdly, by euphemism, "a latrine," or "going to a latrine." 
For the sea-beach is used by the natives for that purpose, 
they going there immediately on rising in the morning. 
They stay, of course, but a short time. If one should stay 
very long, this proverb would be used of him, because Ekela, 
when he went, stayed and made a journey of fifteen or twenty 
miles.) 

Ekela was accustomed, if he started out early to the sea- 
side in the morning, to say, " I am going to manga " ; then 
he went on and on, clear on to Hondo (a place at least fifteen 
miles distant). Passing Hondo, his "manga " would end only 



320 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

wherever he and his friend Unago met. There having told 
their stories, they then each returned. This one went to his 
village, and that one to his village. When Ekela was about 
to go back to his village, then he would leave his fly-brush at 
the spot where he and his friend had been; and when he 
would arrive at home, he would say to his children, "Go, 
take for me the fly-brush which was forgotten of me, there 
at the sea, on the place where I was. Follow my foot-tracks." 
When the children went, it was step by step to Hondo, and 
the foot-tracks were still farther beyond. 

The children, wearied, came back together unto their 
father, and said, "We did not see the brush." When he 
went another morning, then he himself brought it. 

XII. Malanda — an Initiation into a Family v 
Guardian-Spirit Company. 

(Manjana was my cook at Batanga in 1902. He is a young 
married man with several small children. He is of a mild, 
kindly disposition, obliging and smiling, without much force 
of character, slightly educated, civilized in manner and dress, 
but without even a pretence of Christianity; at heart a heathen, 
though a member of the Roman Catholic church, into which 
he consented to be baptized as the means of obtaining in mar- 
riage his wife, who had been raised in that church. 

His Romanism sat lightly on him, for he voluntarily at- 
tended my Protestant evening-prayers, taking his turn with 
others in reading verses around in the chapter of Scripture 
for the day ; then he liked to take part in the general 
conversation which followed about native beliefs and native 
customs. 

Yaka, or family fetich, is no longer, at Batanga, a matter 
of dread, even to the heathen ; so Manjana was not afraid to 
tell me freely what happened when he was initiated into it 
as a lad. I wrote down his story hastily, as soon as he left 
that evening. I later wrote it out in full, while it was all 
fresh in my memory. I could not exactly reproduce ' his 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 321 

graphic native words, so I did not attempt them. The de- 
scription is my own. But I followed exactly the line of his 
story, and used only his thoughts. He said:) 

" I knew that a house was being built on the edge of the 
forest, ^a short distance from our village. I and other lads 
and young men assisted the strong adult men who were build- 
ing it. But I did not then know for what purpose or why 
it was being built. I remembered afterward that no girls 
or women were either assisting or even lounging about it, 
watching the process of building and chatting with the work- 
men, as when other houses were built. I did not know 
that they had been told not to look there.- I remembered 
afterward that the house was located separately from the 
other houses of the village, but that did not just then 
strike me as strange. Somewhat similar houses had been 
built, as temporary sheds in making a boat or canoe. Such 
houses are built rapidly, and not with the same care as is 
used in the erection of dwellings. So it did not occur to me 
as noticeable that this house was finished in the short time 
of two weeks. One gable of it was left open. 

Nor did. I connect its erection with the fact that a promi- 
nent man of our family had died just two weeks before. 
I know now that, in the manner of his death, or in things 
that happened immediately afterward, the elders of the family 
had seen inauspicious signs that made them fear that evil was 
being plotted against us. As I now know, some six or eight 
of our leading adult male members of the family had had a 
secret consultation, and had decided that Malanda should be 
invoked. 

I did not then know much about Malanda. I knew the 
name, that it was a power, that it was dreaded ; but how or 
why I had not been told. 

I know now that while this house was being built one or 
two other men were carving an image of a male figure; also, 
that when the house was completed, that very night some of 
those elders had secretly disinterred the corpse that had been 
-already two weeks in its grave, and had brought it to that 
■ • 21 



322 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

house. There they had extracted two teeth, and had fas- 
tened thern in the hollowed-out cavities representing the eyes 
of the image, and had hidden them there by fastening over 
them, with a common resinous gum of the forest, two small 
pieces of glass. And they had stood the image, painted hide- 
ously, on the cover of a large box, made of the flexible inner 
bark of a tree, at the closed end of the house. 

Then they had cut off the head of the corpse and had 
scooped out its rotten brains. These they had mixed with 
chalk and powdered red-wood and the ashes of other plants, 
and had tied up the mixture carefully in a bundle of dry 
plantain leaves. I already knew and had seen such things 
regarded as very valuable "medicine," used to rub on the 
forehead or other parts of the body. Then they had tied 
the headless corpse erect against a side wall of the house, 
keeping its arms extended by cross pieces of wood. 

The first that I knew that anything unusual was about to 
occur was early one morning, just after the completion of the 
house, when the voices of the elders were heard in the street, 
"Malanda has come! " The women and girls were fright- 
ened. They knew they were not to look at Malanda. And 
we lads were oppressed with a vague dread that subdued 
us from our usual boisterous plays. We knew the name 
"Malanda." It was a power, it was mysterious. Mystery 
is a burden; it might be for good or for evil. 

Immediately all the adult men went into the forest. In 
about an hour they returned, bearing on their shoulders a 
long, large log of a tree. They cast it into the middle of 
the street, facing the sun. The hour was about 8 a.m. 

They sternly ordered about twenty of the young men and 
lads to sit down on the log. The mystery that had bur- 
dened me now fell heavier. Our mothers and sisters were 
afraid to look on us, even with sympathy. These men were 
our fathers and uncles and elder brothers, but their voices 
were harsh, their faces set with severity, their eyes had 
no light of recognition as relatives, and their hands handled 
us roughly. I was dazed and helpless in my own village 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 323 
% 

and among my own relatives, but not a word of pity nor a 

look of even kindness from a single person ! Each of the 

twenty also was too occupied with his own destiny to speak 

to a fellow victim. As far as our treatment was concerned 

we might have been slaves in another tribe. With no will 

of our own we blindly did as we were bidden. 

We were told to throw our heads back, bending our necks 
to the point of pain, and to stare with unblinking eyes at the 
sun. As the sun mounted all that morning, hot and glaring, 
toward the zenith, we were sedulously watched to see that 
we kept our heads back, arms down, and eyes following 
the burning sun in its ascent. My throat was parched 
with thirst. My brain began to whirl, the pain in my 
eyes became intolerable, and I ceased to hear; all around 
me became black, and I fell off the log. 

As each one of us thus became exhausted or actually 
fainted, we were blindfolded and taken to that house. On 
reaching it still blindfolded I knew nothing that was there. 
I smelled only a horrible odor. The same rough hands and 
hard voices had possession of me. Though blindfolded, I 
could feel that the eyes that were looking on me were cruel. 

It was useless to resist, as they began to beat me with rods. 
My outcries only brought severer blows. I perceived that 
submission lightened their strokes. When finally I ceased 
struggling or crying, the bandage was removed. The horror 
of that headless corpse standing extending its rotting arms 
toward me, and the staring glass eyes of the image overcame 
me, and I attempted to flee. That was futile. I was seized 
and beaten more severely than before, until I had no will or 
wish, but utter submission to the will of whatever power it 
might be, natural or supernatural, into whose hands I had 
fallen. 

When all twenty of us had been thus reduced to abject 
submission, we were treated less severely. Some kindness 
began to be shown. Our physical wants were looked after 
and regarded. Food and drink were supplied us. I ob- 
served an occasional look of recognition. I began to feel 



324 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

that I was being admitted into a companionship. There 
was something manly in the thought of being entrusted with 
a secret to which younger lads were not admitted and from 
which all of womankind were debarred. This gave me a 
sense of elevation. There were some people whom I could 
look down upon ! It began, to be worth while to have suf- 
fered so much. I began to be accustomed to the corpse of 
my relative. True, I was a prisoner; but the days were 
relieved by a variety of instructions and ceremonies prac- 
tised over us by the doctor. 

At first we were, in succession, solemnly asked whether 
we were possessed of any witchcraft power ("o na jemba?" 
Have you a witch?) Elsewhere we all would have indig- 
nantly denied having any such evil doings. But in the face 
of that corpse, under the presence of the unknown power to 
which we were being introduced, in the hands of a pitiless 
inquisition, and with the obliteration of our own wills, we 
did not dare lie. Would not the power know we were lying ? 
We told what we imagined to be the truth ; some admitted, 
some denied. 

The Yak& bundle was opened ; some of its dust was added 
to the brain -mixture (already mentioned). Of this compound 
an ointment was made. On the breasts of those who denied 
were drawn commendatory longitudinal lines of that oint- 
ment. On the breasts of those who admitted were drawn 
corrective horizontal lines with the same mixture. Instruc- 
tions appropriate to our respective condition, as witch pos- 
sessed or non-possessed, were given by the doctor. 

We were interested also in watching the digging of a pit 
in the floor of the house. When this had reached a depth 
of over six feet, a tunnel was driven laterally under one of 
the side walls, and opening out, a rod or two beyond, where 
a low hut was built to conceal it. Into this tunnel the doctor 
and three or four of the strongest of the elders carried the 
corpse, and left it there for about ten clays, the doctor pass- 
ing much of that time with it. 

After we had been in the house almost twenty days, al- 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 325 

though still confined, I did not feel that I was a prisoner; I 
was deeply interested in seeing and taking part in this great 
mystery. I no longer dreaded the dead. Even if physical 
pain were yet to be inflicted on me, I would take it gladly as 
the price of a knowledge which ministered to manly pride. 
I was being made a sharer in the rights and possession of the 
family guardian -spirit. 

A few days after this the corpse, now reduced almost to 
a skeleton, was brought up from the tunnel, and bisected 
longitudinally. The halves were laid a few feet apart, par- 
allel and a short distance away from the two sides of 
the house. We were gathered in two companies against 
the walls, and were told to advance toward each other, 
carefully stepping over, and by no means to tread on, our 
half of the remains. And the two companies met in the 
centre. 

We now felt we were free, though not formally told so. 
We had made a fearful oath, of secrecy. We preferred to 
remain and assist in the final order of the house. The doctor 
and elders now disarticulated the skeleton (for such it was, 
the man being dead now at least five weeks, and the decom- 
posed flesh having almost all fallen away). The bones were 
put into the bark box on which stood the image. They were 
an addition to the contents of the Yaka, or family fetich. 
Then, at the close of three weeks' confinement in the house, 
we emerged in procession, the elders bearing the box and the 
image on the top, and proceeded to the village street. 
There the box and image were set; and a joyous dance was 
started with drum and song, with all the people of the vil- 
lage, male and female. A sheep or goat was killed, and a 
feast prepared. While the dance was going on, the elders 
around the box were bowing and praying to the image on 
their knees. From time to time a man would parade by, lift- 
ing his steps high and bowing low, and as suddenly erect- 
ing himself and strongly aspirating, "Hah! hah!" And 
the village was glad, for it felt sure no evil could now come 
to it. I was safe, and ready, at the next time of danger, 



326 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

to assist in torturing the next younger set of lads, for was 
I not a freeman of the family guardian-spirit? 

The box and image were stowed away in a back room of 
the village headman's dwelling, who would often take a 
plate full of food to it, as a sacrifice, and sometimes an 
offering of cloth or other goods ; and the village felt safe. 

Nevertheless, the house was not torn down ; it stood empty 
and unused. But if, even a year later, evil still fell on the 
village, the elders knew that something about the Malanda 
had not been rightly performed. And it must all be done 
over again with the next dead adult male (never a female) 
and with a new lot of neophytes. 

A woman may be subjected to a part of the above cere- 
monies if she is suspected of witchcraft, or if, on examina- 
tion, she confess to using black art. To purge her of this 
evil, and to counteract the consequences of what she may 
have done, she is taken to the little hut over the end of the 
tunnel, and some of the above described ceremonies are per- 
formed over her; but she is never taken into the house, nor 
into the presence of the corpse. 



XIII. Three-Things Came Back too Late. 

(The following narrative was told me by a Batanga native 
Christian woman who, herself less than thirty years of age, 
is a great-granddaughter of the man one of whose wives was 
the witch of this story. I bade her, in giving me the 
account, to speak, not from her present Christian stand- 
point and her only slight superstitious bias, but from the 
full heathen view-point. The confusing mixture of singu- 
lar and plural pronouns referring to the witch is an exact 
reproduction of my informant's words.) 

The great-grandfather was a heathen and a polygamist. 
He had four wives. One of them was a member of an 
interior tribe, the Boheba, more heathenish and superstitious 
than his own Batanga coast tribe. Unknown to him, she 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 327 

was a member of the Witchcraft Society, had power with 
the spirits, and they with her, attended their secret night 
meetings, and engaged in their unhallowed orgies. 

The husband, though not a member of the society, had 
acquired some knowledge of witchcraft art, and, though 
without the power to transform himself, as wizards did, was 
able to see and know what was being done at distances be- 
yond ordinary human sight. 

One night she arose from her bed to go and attend a 
witchcraft play. She left her physical "house," the fleshly 
body, lying on the bed, so that no one not in the secret, 
seeing that body lying there, would think other than it was 
herself, nor would know that she was gone out. In her 
going out she willed to emerge as Three-Things, and this 
triple unit went off to the witchcraft play. The husband 
happened to see this, and watched her as she disappeared, 
saw where she went, and, though distant and out of sight, 
knew what she was doing. So he said to himself, " She 
is off at her play; I also will do some playing here; she 
shall know what I have done." 

Among the several things of which followers of witchcraft 
are afraid, and which weaken their power, is cayenne pepper. 
So this man gathered a large quantity of pepper-pods from 
the bushes growing in the behu (kitchen-garden), and bruised 
them in a mortar to a fine soft pulp. This he smeared thor- 
oughly all over the woman's unconscious body as it lay in 
her bedroom. He left not the smallest portion of her skin 
untouched by the pepper, — from her scalp, and in the inter- 
stices of her fingers and toes, minutely over her entire body. 

Meanwhile, with the woman at her play, the night was 
passing. The witches' sacred bird, the owl, began its early 
morning warning hoot. She prepared to return. As she 
was returning, the first morning cock-crow also warned her 
to hasten, lest daybreak should find her triple unit outside 
of its fleshly "house." So the three came rushing with the 
speed of wind back to her village. Her husband was on the 
watch ; he heard this panting sound as of a person breathing 



328 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

rapidly, and felt the impulse of their wind as she reached 
her hut and came in to re-enter their house. 

He saw her approach every possible part of the body, seek- 
ing to find even a minute spot that was not barred by the 
pepper. She searched long and anxiously, but in vain ; and 
in despair they went and hid herself in a wood-pile at the 
back of one of the village huts, waiting in terror for some 
possible escape. 

All this the husband saw silently. When morning light 
finally came, he knew that this wife was dead, for her life- 
spirit had not succeeded in returning to its body within the 
specified time. It was therefore a dead body. But he said 
nothing about it to any one, and went off fishing. 

As the morning hours were passing while he was away 
and the woman's door of her hut was still closed, his chil- 
dren began to wonder and to say, " What is this ? What is 
the matter? Since morning light our father's wife has not 
come out into the street." After waiting awhile longer, their 
anxiety and curiosity overcame them, and they broke in the 
door. There they saw the woman lying dead. They fled in 
fear, saying, "What is this that has killed our father's wife?" 
They went down to the beach to meet him as he returned 
from fishing, and excitedly told him, " Father, we have found 
your Boheba wife dead ! " The man, to their surprise, did 
not seem grieved. He simply said, " Let another one of my 
wives cook for me; I will first eat." Still more to their sur- 
prise, he added, "And you, my children, and all people of 
the village, do not any of you dare even to touch the body. 
Only, at once, send word to her Boheba relatives to come." 

This warning he gave his people, lest any of them should 
sicken by coming close to the atmosphere that the witch had 
possibly brought back with her from her play. 

By the time he had finished eating, the woman's relatives 
had arrived. They were all heavily armed with guns and 
spears and knives, and were threatening revenge for their 
sister's death. 

The man quietly bade them delay their anger till they had 



TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT 329 

heard what he had to say ; and took them to the woman's hut, 
that they themselves might examine the corpse, leaving to 
them the chance of contamination. 

They examined ; they lifted up the body of their sister, and 
searched closely for any sign of wound or bruise. Finding 
none, but still angry, they were mystified, and exclaimed, 
" What then has killed her ? " And they seated themselves 
for a verbal investigation. But the man said, " We will not 
talk just yet. First stand up, and you shall see for your- 
selves." As they arose, the man said, " Remove all those 
sticks in that wood-pile. You will find the woman there." 
So they pulled away the sticks ; and there they found Three- 
Things. " There ! " said the husband, " see the reason why 
your sister is dead ! " At that the relatives were ashamed, 
and said, " Brother-in-law ! we have nothing to say against 
you, for our eyes see what our sister has done. She has killed 
herself, and she is worthy to be punished by fire.' , (Burning 
was a common mode of execution for the crime of witchcraft.) 

In her terror at being unable to get back into her mortal 
body, the Three-Things, all the while she was hidden in the 
wood-pile, had shrivelled smaller and smaller until what was 
left were three deformed crab-shaped beings, a few inches long, 
with mouths like frogs. These, paralyzed with fear, could not 
speak, but could only chatter and tremble. 

So the relatives seized these Three-Things, and also 
carried away the body ; and, followed by all the people of the 
village, they burnt it and them on a large rock by the sea. 

That rock I pass very often as I walk on the beach. At 
high tide it is cut off from the shore a distance of a few yards ; 
at low tide one can walk out to it. It is only a few hundred 
yards from our Batanga Mission Station. 



CHAPTER XVII 

FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 

THE telling of Folk-lore Tales amounts, with the African 
Negro, almost to a passion. By day, both men and 
women have their manual occupations, or, even if idling, 
pass the time in sleep or gossip ; but at night, particularly 
with moonlight, if there be on hand no dances, either of 
fetich-worship or of mere amusement, some story-teller is 
asked to recite. All know the tales, but not all can recite 
them dramatically. The audience never wearies of repeti- 
tion. The skilful story-teller in Africa occupies in the 
community the place rilled in civilization by the actor or 
concert-singer. 

This is true all over Africa. In any one region there are 
certain tales common to all the tribes in that region. But 
almost every tribe will have tales distinctive to it. It is part 
of native courtesy to ask a visitor to contribute his local story 
to the amusement of the evening. 

Some of these tales are probably of ancient origin, as to 
their plot and their characters. I am disposed to give the 
folk-lore of Africa a very ancient origin. Ethnology and 
philology trace the Bantu stream from the northeast, not by 
a straight line diagonally to the southwest, but the stream, 
starting with an infusion of Hamitic (and perhaps Caucasian) 
blood in the Nubian provinces, flowed south to the Cape, 
and then, turning on itself, flowed northwestward until it 
lost itself at the Bight of Benin. That blood gave to the 
Bantu features more delicate than those of the northern 
Guinea Negro. 

That stream, as it flowed, carried with it arts, thoughts, 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 331 

plants, and animals from the south of Egypt. The bellows 
used in every village smithy on the West Coast is the same as 
is depicted on Egyptian monuments. The great personages 
mentioned as " kings " are probably semi-deified ancestors, or 
are even confounded with the Creator. It may not be only 
a coincidence that the ancient Egyptian word " Ra " exists in 
west equatorial tribes (contracted from "rera" = my father) 
with its meaning of " Lord," " Master," " Sir." In these tales 
the name Ra-Mborakinda is used interchangeably with the 
Divine Name, Ra-Nyambe. 

But it is true that a doubt can be raised against the an- 
tiquity of some of the tales, in which are introduced words, 
e.g., "cannon," "pistol," articles not known to the African 
until comparatively modern times. And in the case of a few, 
such as No. V., the origin is in all probability modern. In 
No. V. the reader at once turns in thought to " Ali Baba and 
the Forty Thieves." There the internal evidence is positive, 
either that the story was heard long ago from Arabs (or per- 
haps within the last hundred years from some foreigner), or 
there may have been an original African story, to which mod- 
ern narrators have attached incidents of Ali Baba which they 
have overheard within the last fifty years from some white 
trader or educated Sierra-Leonian. 

But it would not necessarily condemn a tale's claim to an- 
tiquity that it had in it modern words. Such words as 
"gun," "pistol," "stairway," "canvas," and others may be 
interpolations. It was probably true long ago, as is now the 
case, that narrators added to or changed words uttered by the 
characters. Where in the plot some modern weapon is named, 
long ago it was perhaps a spear, club, or bow and arrow. 
When Dutch and Portuguese built their forts on the African 
shore three hundred years ago, some bright narrator could 
readily have varied the evening's performance by introducing 
a cannon into the story. Such variations necessarily grew ; 
for the native languages were not crystallized into written 
ones until the days of the modern missionary. 

In recitation great latitude is allowed as to the time occu- 



332 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

pied. Brevity is not desired. A story whose outline could 
be told in ten minutes may be spread over two hours by a 
vivid use of the speaker's imagination in a minute description 
of details. A great deal of repetition (after the manner of 
" This is the house that Jack built ") is employed, that would 
be wearisome to a civilized audience, but is intensely en- 
joyed by the African, e. g., where the plot calls for the doing 
of an act for several days in succession, we would say simply, 
" And the next day he did the same." But the native lover 
of folk-lore will repeat the same details in the same words 
for the second and third and even fourth day. In my report- 
ing I have omitted this repetition. 

I have purposely used some native idioms in order to re- 
tain local color. African narrators use very short sentences. 
Africans in many respects are grown-up children. One of 
their daily recognized idioms finds its exact parallel in the 
speech of our own children. Listen to a civilized child's ani- 
mated account of some act. They repeat. The native does 
so constantly. He is not satisfied, in telling the narrative of 
a journey, by saying curtly, " I went." His form is, " I went, 
went, there, there," etc. His dramatic acting keeps up the 
interest of the audience in the twice-told tale. 

I. Queen Ngwe-nkonde and her Manja. 

A king, by name Ra-Mborakinda, had many wives, but 
he had no children at all. He was dissatisfied, and was 
always saying that he wanted children. So he went to a 
certain great wizard, named Ra-Marange, to get help for his 
trouble. 

Whenever any one went on any business to Ra-Marange, 
before he had time to tell the wizard what he wanted, Ra-Ma- 
range would say, " Have you come to have something wonder- 
ful done ? " On the visitor saying, " Yes," Ra-Marange, as 
the first step in his preparations and to obtain all needed 
power, would jump into fire or do some other astonishing act. 

So, this day, he sprang into the fire, and came out unharmed 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 333 

and strong. Then he told Ra-Mborakinda to tell his story of 
what he had come for. 

The king said, " Other people have children, bnt I have 
none. Make me a medicine that shall cause my women to 
bear children." Ra-Marange replied, " Yes, I will fix you the 
medicine ; and after I have made the mixture, you must re- 
quire all of your women to eat of it." So the wizard fixed 
the medicine, and the king took it with him and went home. 

His queen's name was Ngwe-nkonde ; and among his lesser 
wives and concubines were two quite young women who were 
friends, one of whom lived with the queen in her hut as her 
little manja, or handmaid. 

As soon as Ra-Mborakinda arrived, he announced his posses- 
sion of the medicine, and ordered all his women to come and 
eat of it. But Ngwe-nkonde was jealous of her young maid, 
and did not wish her to become a mother. So, early in the 
morning, she purposely sent the manja away to their mpindi 
(plantation hut) on a made-up errand, so that she might not 
be present at the feast. 

At the appointed hour the king spread out the medicine, 
and called the women to come. They each came with a piece 
of plantain leaf as a plate, and assembled to eat, and Ram- 
borakinda divided out the medicine among them. Then the 
other of the two young women remembered her friend the 
manja, and observed that she was absent. So she quickly 
tore off a piece of her plantain leaf, and divided on it a part 
of her own share of the medicine, and hid it by her, to keep it 
for the manja, so that she could have it on her return from 
the mpindi. In the afternoon, when the manja returned, her 
friend gave her the portion of the medicine, and she ate it. 
Soon after this, all these women told Ra-Mborakinda that they 
expected to become mothers. 

After a few months he announced to them that he was go- 
ing away on a long trade-journey and that he would not return 
until a stated time. He gave them directions that in the 
meanwhile they should leave his town and go to their parents' 
homes and stay there until his return. 



334 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Now it happened that all these women had homes except 
the little manja ; her parents were dead, but she remembered 
the locality of their deserted village. 

So Ra-Mborakinda left to go on his journey, and all the ex- 
pectant mothers scattered to the homes of their parents, except 
the manja, who had to follow with the queen to her people's 
village. But soon after their arrival at Ngwe-nkonde's home, 
the latter began to treat her maid cruelly ; and finally, in her 
severity, she said, u Go away to your own home and sojourn 
there," the while that she knew very well that her manja 
had no home. Her thought and hope were that the manja 
would perish in the wilderness. 

As the maid knew the spot where her home had been, 
she left Ngwe-nkonde's village, and started into the forest 
to go to her deserted village. On arriving there, she found 
no houses nor any remains of human habitation. But there 
was a very large fallen tree, with a trunk so curved that 
it w r as not lying entirely flat on the ground. Under this 
enormous log she sat down to rest, and it gave her shade 
and shelter. She accepted it as her place at which to live 
and slept there that night. When she awoke in the morn- 
ing, she saw lying near her food and other needed things ; 
but she saw no one coming or going. A few days later on 
awaking in the morning she saw a nice little house with every- 
thing prepared of food and clothing and medicines and such 
articles as would be needed by a mother for her babe. She 
stayed there, and in a few days gave birth to a man-child. 
Each day in the morning she found, prepared for her hand, 
food and other needed things lying near. 

So she stayed there a long time till her baby was able to 
creep. When the baby had grown strong, she knew it was 
the time that Ra-Mborakinda had appointed for the return of 
his women to his town. She finally gathered together her 
things for the journey next day. That night, before she had 
gone to sleep, suddenly she saw a little girl standing near 
her, and she heard a voice which she remembered as her 
mother's saying, " I give you this little girl to carry the babe 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 335 

for you. But when you go back to Ra-Mborakinda, do not 
allow anyone but yourself and this girl to carry the child ; if 
you do, the girl will disappear." So the next morning they 
started on their journey, the young mother and baby and the 
girl-nurse. 

During this while each of the other women had also 
born her baby, and they were now preparing to return to 
Ra-Mborakinda' s town. But of them all none had born real 
human beings, except the manja and her young friend. All 
the others had born monstrosities, like snakes, frogs, and other 
creatures. Ngwe-nkonde had born two snails, of the kind 
called " nkala." (It is a very large snail.) 

So that day Ngwe-nkonde was coming along with her 
nyamba (a long scarf) hung over her right shoulder, and her 
two snails resting in the slack of the scarf, as in a hammock, 
over her left hip, and supported by her left arm. When the 
manja reached the cross-roads, she found the queen waiting 
there. Her object in waiting there was to know whether 
her maid was still in existence. 

On seeing the manja, Ngwe-nkonde pretended to be pleased 
and said, " Let me see' the child you have born ; " and she 
stepped forward to take the baby away from the little girl- 
nurse. Manja, in her fear of her mistress and accustomed to 
submit to her, forgot to resist. Ngwe-nkonde saw that the babe 
was healthy and attractive, and she coveted it. She ex- 
claimed, " Oh, what a nice child you have born ! Let me 
help you carry it ! " The moment she took the baby, the 
girl-nurse disappeared. Ngwe-nkonde deposited the babe in 
her scarf, and gave the two snails to her manja, saying, " You 
carry this for me ! " She did this, intending to cause Ra- 
Mborakinda to think that the baby was her own ; she had no 
intention to return it to its real mother ; and the manja did 
not dare to complain. 

So they went onward on their journey to the king's town. 

All the women, as they arrived there, saluted each other, 
"Mbolo!" "Ai! mbolo ! " "Ai!" and each told her story 
and showed her baby. Then they all brought their babies 



336 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

to the King Ra-Mborakinda, that the father might see his 
children. In the king's presence Ngwe-nkonde took out 
the baby boy from her scarf and placed it at her breast to 
nurse. But the child turned its head away and would not 
nurse, and did nothing but cry and cry. Poor little manja 
did not dare to claim her own, and she took no interest in 
the snails to show them to the king. For a whole day there 
was confusion. The baby boy persisted in rejecting Ngwe- 
nkonde's breast and kept on crying, and the snails were 
moaning. 

Not knowing what to make of this trouble, Ra-Mborakinda 
went again to Ra-Marange. The wizard laughed when he saw 
the king coming with this new trouble, for, by his magic 
power, he already knew all that had happened. " So ! " he 
says, " you have come with another trouble, eh ? " And at 
once he jumps into the fire, and emerges clean and strong. 

Then the king informed the wizard what his difficulty 
was. And Ra-Marange told him, " This is a small thing. It 
does not need medicine. Go you and tell all your women 
each to cook some very nice food; then, sitting in a 
circle, each must put the nice food near her feet. All the 
babies must be put in a bunch together in the centre, and 
you will see what will happen." 

So Ra-Mborakinda went back to his town and told the 
women to follow these directions. They all did so, except 
the queen and her manja. The former did not put the baby 
boy in the bunch of the other babies, but retained him on her 
lap, and tried to make him eat of her nice food. But he only 
resisted, and kept on crying, and the manja, in her grief and 
hopelessness, had not prepared any nice food, only a pottage 
of greens, which she thought good enough for her present 
unhappiness. 

The king seeing that the wizard's directions were not 
fully followed by the queen, compelled her to put the baby 
down in the company of the other creatures, and then he 
and all the mothers sat around watching what would happen. 

Soon all the children began to creep, each to its own 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 337 

mother. The two snails went to Ngwe-nkonde, and began to 
eat of her nice food. The little baby boy crept rapidly 
toward the manja, and began with satisfaction to eat of the 
poor food at its mother's feet. 

That was a revelation to the king and to all the other 
mothers. They were surprised and indignant that Ngwe- 
nkonde had been trying to steal the baby from the manja; 
Ra-Mborakinda deposed her from being queen. And the other 
women shouted derision at her, "Ngwe-nkonde ! O ! o-o-o ! " 
and drove her from the town. She went away in her shame, 
leaving the two snails behind, and never returned. 

And the king made the manja queen in her place. And 
the story ends. 

II. The Beautiful Daughter. 

There was a married woman, a king's daughter, by name 
Maria, who was very beautiful. She had a magic mirror that 
possessed the power of speech, which she used every day, 
particularly when she desired to go out for a promenade. 
She would then take this mirror from its hiding-place, and 
looking at it, would ask, "My mirror! is there any other 
beautiful woman like myself?" And this mirror would 
reply, " Mistress ! there is none." 

This she was accustomed to do every day until she became 
jealous at the very thought of ever having a rival. 

Subsequently she became a mother, and bore a daughter. 
She saw that the child was very beautiful, more so than even 
herself. This child grew in gracefulness; was amiable, not 
proud ; and was unconscious of her beauty. 

When the daughter was about twelve years of age, the 
mother dreaded lest her child should know how attractive she 
was and should unintentionally rival her. She told her 
never to enter a certain room where she had her toilet. And 
the mother went on as formerly, looking into her mirror, and 
then going out to display her beauty. 

One day the daughter said to herself, " Ah ! I 'm tired of 
this prohibition ! " So she took the keys, and opened the 

22 



338 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

door of the forbidden room. She looked around, but not ob- 
serving anything especially noticeable, she went out again, 
locking the door. And the next day, the mother went in as 
usual, and then went out for her walk. After the mother had 
gone, the daughter said again to herself, " No ! there must be 
something special about that room. I will go in again and 
make a search." Looking around carefully, she noticed a 
pretty casket on a table. Opening it, she saw it contained a 
mirror. There was something strange about its appearance, 
and she determined to examine it. While she was doing so, 
the mirror spoke, and said, " Oh, maiden ! there is no one 
as beautiful as you ! " She put back the mirror in its place, 
and went out, carefully fastening the door. The next day, 
when the mother went as usual to make her toilet and to ask 
of the mirror her usual question, " Is there another as beauti- 
ful as I ? " it replied, " Yes, mistress, there is another fairer 
than you." 

So she went out of the room much displeased, and, sus- 
pecting her daughter, said to her, " Daughter, have you been 
in that room?" The girl said, "No, I have not." But the 
mother insisted, " Yes, you have ; for how is it that my mir- 
ror tells me that there is another woman more beautiful than 
I ? And you are the only one who has beauty such as mine." 

During all these years the mother had kept the daughter 
in the palace, and had not allowed her to be seen in public, 
as she dreaded to hear any one but herself praised. Then the 
enraged mother sent for her father's soldiers, and delivering 
the girl to them, she commanded, " You just go out into the 
forest and kill this girl." 

They obeyed her orders, and led the girl away, taking with 
them also two big dogs. When they reached the forest, the 
soldiers said to her, " Your mother told us to kill you. But 
you are so good and pretty that we are not willing to do it. 
You just go your way and wander in this forest, and await 
what may happen." 

The girl went her way; and the soldiers killed the two 
dogs, so that they might have blood on their swords to show to 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 339 

the mother. Having done this, they went back to her, and 
said, "We have killed the girl; here is her blood on our 
swords." And the mother was satisfied. 

But in the forest the girl had gone on, wandering aim- 
lessly, till she happened to reach what seemed a hamlet 
having only one house. She went up its front steps and 
tried the door. It was not locked, and she went in. She 
saw or heard no one, but she noticed that the house was 
very much in disorder ; so she began to arrange it. After 
sweeping and putting everything in neat order, she went 
upstairs and hid herself under one of the bedsteads. 

Bat she did not know that the house belonged to robbers 
who spent their days in stealing, and brought their plunder 
home in the evening. When they returned that day, laden 
with booty, they were surprised to find their house in neat 
order and their goods arranged in piles. In their wonder they 
exclaimed, "Who has been here and fixed our house so 
nicely? " 

So they prepared their food, ate, drank, and slept, but 
they did not clean up the table nor wash the dishes. 

And the next day they went out again on their business of 
stealing. 

After they were gone, the girl, hungry and frightened, 
crept out of her hiding-place, and cooked and ate food for 
herself. Then, as on the first day, she swept the floors and 
washed up the dishes. And then she cooked a meal for the 
men to have it ready against their return in the late after- 
noon; and again she occupied herself with the arrangement 
of the goods in the rooms. Then she went back to ' her 
hiding-place. 

When the robbers returned that day and laid down their 
booty, they were again surprised to find not only their house 
in good order, but food ready on the table. And they won- 
dered, "Who does all this for us? " 

They first sat down to eat; and then they said, "Let us 
look around and find out who does all this." They searched, 
but they found no one. 



340 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

The next day they armed themselves as usual to go out, 
leaving the table and their recent load of stealings in 
disorder. 

When they had gone, the girl again emerged from her 
hiding-place, and, as before, cooked, ate, washed up, swept, 
arranged, and prepared the evening meal. 

Again the robbers, on their return, were still more aston- 
ished, as they exclaimed, "Whoever does this? If it is a 
woman, then we will take her as our sister. She shall take 
care of our house and our goods, but none of us shall marry 
her; but if it is a man, he must be compelled to join in our 
business." 

The next day, when they were all going out on their ways, 
they appointed one of their number to remain behind, hidden, 
who should watch, and thus they should know who had been 
helping them. 

When they had gone, the girl, ignorant that one had been 
left to watch, came out of her hiding, and began to do as on 
the other days. When she went outdoors to the kitchen 
[kitchens here are all detached] to cook, the watcher came in 
sight. She was frightened, and began to run away; but he 
called out, "Don't be afraid! Don't run, but come here! 
What are you afraid of? You are not doing anything bad, 
you have been doing us only good. Come here!" She 
stood and said, "I was afraid you would kill me!" 

He came to her, saying, "What a beautiful girl to look 
at! When did you come here, and who are you?" So 
she told him her story. And when she had finished all the 
housework, she sat down with this man to await the coming 
of the others. When the others came and saw the two, 
they said to him, "So you found her?" He replied only, 
"Yes." Looking on her, they exclaimed, "Oh, what a beau- 
tiful girl ! " To calm her excitement, they told her, " Do not 
be alarmed! you are to be our sister." 

So they took all their goods and put them in her care, and 
herself in charge of the house. Thus they lived for some 
time, — they stealing, and she taking care for them. 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 341 

But one day, at the palace, the wicked mother began to 
have some uneasy doubts whether her soldiers had really 
obeyed her orders to kill her daughter, and thought, " Per- 
haps the child was not really killed." She had a familiar 
servant, an old woman, very friendly to her. To her she 
revealed her story, and said, "Please go out and spy in 
every town. Look whether you see a girl who is very 
beautiful; if so, she is my daughter. You must kill her." 
The old woman replied, "Yes, my friend, I will do this 
thing for you." So she went out and began her spying. 

The very first place at which she happened to arrive was 
the robbers' house. There being no people in sight, she 
entered the house, and found a girl alone. On account of 
the girl's great beauty, she felt sure at once that this was 
her friend's daughter. The girl gave her a seat and offered 
hospitality. The old woman exclaimed, " Oh, what a nice- 
looking child! Who are you, and who is your mother?" 
The girl, not suspecting evil, told her story. 

Then the old woman said, " Your hair looks a little untidy. 
Come here, and let me fix it." The girl consented; and the 
old woman began to braid her hair. She had hidden in her 
sleeve a long sharpened nail. When she had completed the 
hair-dressing, she thrust the nail deeply into the girl's head, 
who instantly fell down, apparently dead. Looking at the 
limp body, the old woman said to herself, " Good for that ! 
I have done it for my friend." And she went away, leaving 
the corpse lying there, and reported to the mother what she had 
done. The mother felt sure her friend had not deceived her. 

When the robbers returned that day, they found the girl 
lying dead. They were very much troubled. They began 
to examine the corpse, to find what was the cause of death, 
but they found no sign of any wound; and instead of the 
corpse being rigid, it was limp; there was perspiration on 
the head and neck. So they decided, " This nice life-look- 
ing face we will not put in a grave." So they made a 
handsome casket, overlaid it with gold, and adorned the 
body with a profusion of gold ornaments. They did not nail 



342 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

on the lid, but made it to slide in grooves. Supposing the 
body liable to decay, they placed the coffin outdoors in the 
air; and to keep it out of the reach of any animals, they 
hung it by the halliards of their flag-staff. Every day, on 
their going out and on their return, they pulled it down by 
the halliards, drew out the lid, and looked on the fresh, 
apparently living face of their "sister." 

One day while they were all out on their business there 
happened to stray that way a man by name Eserengila (tale- 
bearer), who lived at the town of a man named Ogula. Com- 
ing to the robbers' house, he saw no one; but he at once 
observed the hanging golden box. Exclaiming, "What a 
nice thing! " he hasted back to his master Ogula, and called 
him. "Come and see what a nice thing I have found; it is 
something worth taking!" So Ogula went with him, and 
Eserengila pulled down the gilded box from the flag-staff. 
They did not enter the house, nor did they know anything 
of its character; and they carried away the box in haste, 
without looking at its contents, to Ogula's, and put it in a 
small room in his house. 

Some days after it had been placed there Ogula went in 
to examine what it contained. He saw that the top of this 
coffin-like box was not nailed, but slid in a groove. He 
withdrew it, and was amazed to see a beautiful young 
woman apparently dead. Yet there was no look or odor of 
death. As she was not emaciated by disease, he examined 
the body to find a possible cause of death ; but he found no 
sign, and wondering, exclaimed, " This beautiful girl ! What 
has caused her to die ? " 

He replaced the lid, and left the room, carefully closing 
the door. But he again returned to look at the beautiful 
face of the corpse ; and sighed, " Oh, I wish this beautiful 
being were alive ! She would be such a nice playmate for 
my daughter, who is just about her size." Again he went 
and shut the door very carefully. He told his daughter 
never to enter that room, and she said, "Yes"; and he 
continued his daily visits there. 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 343 

After many days Ogula's daughter became tired of seeing 
him enter while she was forbidden. So one day, when he 
was gone out of the house, she said to herself, " My father 
always forbids me this room ; now I will go in and see what 
he has there." She entered, and saw only the gilded box, 
and exclaimed, "Oh, what a nice box! I'll just open it and 
see what is inside." 

She began to draw the lid out of its grooves, and a human 
head was revealed with a splendid mass of hair covered with 
gold ornaments. She withdrew the lid entirely, and saw the 
form of the young woman, and delightedly said, " A beautiful 
girl, with such nice hair, and covered with golden ornaments ! " 
She did not know why the girl seemed so unconscious, and 
began to say, " I wish she could speak to me, so we might be 
friends, because she is only a little larger than I." So she 
gave the stranger's salutation, "Mbolo! mbolo! " As no re- 
sponse was made, she protested, " Oh, I salute you, mbolo, 
but you do not answer! " She was disappointed, and slid 
back the cover, and went out of the room. Something about 
the door aroused the suspicions of her father on his return 
to the house, and he asked her, " Have you been inside that 
room ? " She answered, " No ! You told me never to go 
there, and I have not gone." Next day Ogula went out 
again, and his daughter thought she would have another 
look at the beautiful face. Entering the room, she again 
drew out the lid, and again she gave the salutation, 
"Mbolo!" There was no response. Again she protested, 
"Oh, I speak to you, and you won't answer me!" And 
then she added, "May I play with you, and fondle your 
head, and feel your hair? Perhaps you have lice for me 
to remove ? " [one of the commonest of native African 
friendly services among both men and women]. She began 
to feel through the hair with her ringers, and presently she 
touched something hard. Looking closely, she found it was 
the head of a nail. Astonished, she said, "Oh, she has a 
nail in her head! I '11 try to pull it out! " 

Instantly, on her doing so, the girl sneezed, opened her 



344 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

eyes, stared around, rose up in a sitting posture, and said, 
"Oh, I must have been sleeping a long time." The other 
asked, "You were only sleeping?" And the girl replied, 
"Yes." Then Ogula's daughter saluted, "Mbolo! " and the 
girl responded, " Ai, Mbolo! " and the other, "Ail " 

Then the girl asked, " Where am I ? What place is this ? " 
The other said, "Why, you are in my father's house. This 
is my father's house." And the girl asked, "But who or 
what brought me here ? " Then Ogula's daughter told her 
the whole story of Eserengila's having found the gilded box. 
They at once conceived a great liking for each other, and 
started to be friends. They played and laughed and talked 
and embraced, and fondled each other. This they did for 
quite a while. 

Then the beautiful one was tired, and she said, "It is 
better that you put back the nail and let me sleep again." 
So the girl lay down in the box, the nail was inserted in 
her head, and she instantly fell into unconsciousness. 

Ogula's daughter slid back the lid, and went out of the 
room, carefully closing the door. She now lost all desire 
to go out of the house and play with her former companions. 
Her father observed this, and urged her to play and visit 
as she formerly had done. But she declined, making some 
excuses, and saying she had no wish to do so. All her in- 
terest lay in that room of the gilded box and beautiful girl. 
Whenever her father went out, she at once would go to the 
room, draw out the lid, and pull out the nail; her friend 
would sit up, and they would play, and repeat their friend- 
ship. Ogula's daughter, seeing that her friend's desire for 
sleep was weakness for want of food, daily brought her food. 
And the girl grew strong and well and happy. 

This was kept up many days without Ogula knowing 
of it. 

But it happened one day, when the two girls were thus 
sitting in their friendship, they continued their play and con- 
versation so long that Ogula's daughter forgot the time of 
her father's return ; and he suddenly entered the room, and 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 345 

was surprised to see the two girls talking. She was fright- 
ened when she saw her father. But he was not angry, and 
quieted her, saying, "Do not be afraid! How is it that you 
have been able to bring this girl to life? What have you 
done?" 

She told her father all about it, especially of the nail. 
Then Ogula sat down by the girl of the gilded box, and 
asked the story of her life. She told him all. Then he 
said, "As your mother is the kind of woman that sends 
people to kill, and I am chief in this place, I will investi- 
gate this matter to-morrow. I will call all the people of 
this region, and there will be an ozaza (palaver) in the morn- 
ing; and you shall remain, for you are to be my wife." 

The next day all the country side were called, — the 
wicked mother, the soldiers, the old woman, and everybody 
else (except the unknown robbers). The palaver was talked 
from point to point of the history, and, just at the last, this 
beautiful girl walked into the assemblage, accompanied hj 
Ogula 's daughter. 

As soon as Maria saw her daughter enter, she started from 
her seat, looked at the old woman, and fiercely said to her, 
" Here is this girl again ! not dead yet ! I thought you killed 
her! " The old woman was amazed, but asserted, "Yes, and 
I did. I kept my promise to you! " 

Then the girl sat down, and Ogula bade her tell her entire 
story in the presence of all the people. So she told from the 
very beginning, — about the magic looking-glass, about the 
soldiers, about the robbers' house, and on till the stay in 
Ogula's house. 

Then all the people began to shout and deride and revile, 
and threaten Maria and the old woman. This frightened the 
cruel Maria and her wicked friend, and they ran away to a 
far country, and never came back again. 

So the beautiful young woman was married to Ogula, and 
was happy with his daughter as a companion. 

But the robbers, in their secret house, not having heard 
of the ozaza, kept on mourning and grieving for their lost 



346 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

sister, not knowing where she had gone or what had become 
of her. And so the story ends. 

(The above story is probably not more than two hundred 
or two hundred and fifty years old; the name "Maria " doubt- 
less being derived from Portuguese occupants of the Kongo 
country.) 

III. The Husband who Came fkom an Animal. 

Ra-Nyambie in his great town had his wives and sons and 
daughters, and lived in glory. 

He had a best-beloved daughter, by name Ilambe. There is 
a certain fetich charm called "ngalo," by means of which its 
possessor can have gratified any wish he may express. Ngalo 
is not obtainable by purchase or art; only certain persons are 
born with it. This Ilambe was born with a ngalo. While 
she was growing up, her father made a great deal of her and 
gave her very many things, ■ — servants and houses, accord- 
ing to her wishes. When Ilambe had grown up to woman- 
hood, she said, " Father, I will not like a man who has other 
wives. I shall want my husband all for myself." And the 
father said, "Be it so." 

As years went on, Ilambe thought it was time she should 
be married, but she saw no one who pleased her fancy. So 
she took counsel with her ngalo, thinking, "What shall I do 
to get a husband for myself? " 

She decided on a plan. Her father's people often went 
out hunting. One day, when they were going out, she said 
to them, " If you find some small animal, do not kill it, but 
bring it to me alive." 

So they went out hunting, and they found a small animal 
resembling a goat, called "mbinde" (wild goat). They 
brought it to her, asking pardon for its smallness, and said, 
"We did not find anything, only this mbinde." She took 
it, saying, "It is good." Then turning to one of the men, 
she bade him, "Just skin this very carefully for me"; and 
to another of the servants, " Bring me plenty of water, and 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 347 

put it in my bathroom for a bath. " Each of these servants 
did as he was bidden, — this one flaying the animal, that 
one bringing the water. When the one had finished flaying, 
and brought the entire flesh to her, she said, "Just put it 
into this water for a bath." She left it there two days, soak- 
ing in the water. The skin she put in a fire, burned it to 
black ashes, and carefully saved all the ash. This she did 
not do herself, but told a servant to do it, cautioning him to 
lose none of it. When it was brought to her, she wrapped 
it up with care, and put it safely away so that none of it 
should be lost. 

On the third day she spoke to her ngalo, "Ngalo mine, 
ngalo mine, I tell you, turn this mbinde to a very handsome- 
looking man! " Instantly the mbinde was changed to a finely 
formed man, who jumped out of the bath-tub, dressed very 
richly. 

Then Ilambe called one of her servants, and bade, " Go 
to my father, and tell him I wish the town to be cleaned as 
thoroughly and quickly as possible, because I have a hus- 
band, and I want to come and show him to you ; so my father 
must be ready to greet us." 

The father summoned his servant Ompunga (Wind), who 
came, and at once swept up the place clean. 

Ilambe went out from her house with her husband, he and 
she walking side by side through the street on the way 
to her father's house. All along their route the people 
were wondering at the man's fine appearance, and shouting, 
" Where did Ilambe get this man ? " When she reached her 
father's house, he ordered a salute of cannon for her. He 
was much pleased to see the man with the crowd of people, 
and received him with respect. 

Having thus visited her father, Ilambe returned to her 
own house with her husband, the people still shouting in 
admiration of him. The news spread everywhere about 
Ilambe 's fine-looking husband, and there was great praise of 
them. They lived happily in their marriage for a while, but 
trouble came. 



348 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Ilambe had a younger sister living still at her father's 
house. One day Ilambe changed her mind about having a 
husband all to herself, and thought, " I better share him with 
my younger sister." So she went out to her father to tell 
him about it, saying, " Father, I 've changed my mind. I 
want my younger sister to live with me, and marry the same 
man with me." 

Her father, though himself having maoy wives, said, " You 
now change your mind, and are willing to share your hus- 
band with another woman. Will there be no trouble in the 
future? " She answered "No! " He repeated his question; 
but she assured him it would be agreeable. So she took her 
sister (without consulting the husband, as he was under her 
control, by power of her ngalo), led her to her house, and 
presented her as a new wife to her husband. 

They remained on these terms for some time without any 
trouble. But as time went on, the report about that hand- 
some man went far, and finally reached Ra-Mborakinda's 
town. Another woman lived there, also named Ilambe, of the 
same age as the other, and she was unmarried. This Ilambe 
said to herself, " I am tired of hearing the report about this 
handsome man. I will go, though uninvited I be, and see 
for myself." So she tells her brother and some of his men, 
" Take me over there to that town, and I will return to-day." 
She told her father the same words : "lam going to see that 
man, and will return." When this Ilambe got to the other 
Ilambe 's house, the husband was out, but the wife received 
her with great hospitality; and the two sisters and their 
visitor all ate together. Soon the husband came, and the 
wife introduced the visitor. "Here is my friend Il&mbe 
come to see you." "Good," he said. Then it was late in 
the day, and the visiting Ilambe 's attendants said to her, 
"The day is past; let us be going." But she refused to go, 
and told them to return, saying that she would stay awhile 
with her friend Ilambe. 

But really, in her coming she was not simply a visitor and 
sightseer; she intended to stay and share in the husband. 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 349 

As her brother was leaving, he asked, " But when will you 
return? and shall we come for you?" She said, "No; I 
myself will come back when I please." When the even- 
ing came, the hostess began to fix a sleeping-place for her 
visitor, showing her much kindness in the care of her 
arrangements. 

The second day the hostess observed something suspicious 
in the manner with which her husband regarded the visitor; 
he said to his wife, "Here is your friend. Speak to her 
for me. Are you willing to do that? " She looked at him 
steadily, and slowly said, "Yes." So at evening she spoke 
of the matter to her visitor, who at once assented. 

When Ilambe parted with her husband before retiring, she 
said to him, " Go with this new woman, but do not forget 
your and my morning custom." [That was their habit of 
rising very early for a morning bath.] He only said, "Yes." 
They all retired for the night. 

The next morning the hostess was up early as usual, and 
had her bath, and was out of her room, waiting. But the 
man was not up yet, nor were there any sounds of prepara- 
tion in his room. So Ilambe, after waiting awhile, had to 
call to waken him. He woke, saying, " Oh, yes, yes, I 'm 
coming! " 

The next day it was the same, he staying with the new 
Ilambe and rising late in the morning. The fourth day his 
wife said to him, " You have work to do, and you do not get 
up to do it till late." He was displeased at her fault-finding. 
When she saw that, she also was displeased. 

So when he went to the bathroom she followed him there. 
On the way she had secretly taken with her the roll of black 
powder she had kept from the day of his creation. 

While he was bathing, she turned aside, without his no- 
ticing it, and opening the roll of the powder, took out of it a 
little, and held it between her finger and thumb. 

While he was dressing, she came near, stooped down, and 
rubbed the powder on his feet. They suddenly turned to 
hoofs. He began stamping his hoofs on the floor, surprised, 



350 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

and saying, "Wife, what is this?" She said, "It is noth- 
ing. You have finished dressing. Go out." He began to 
plead; she relented, and by her ngalo's power changed the 
hoofs back to feet. They both went out of the room and had 
their breakfast, and that day passed. But at night he again 
abandoned his wife for the new Ilambe, and next morning 
he was up later even than on the previous days. He had to 
be called several times before he would awake. He began to 
grumble and scold, " Can't a person be left to sleep as long 
as he desires?" And when he and the new Ilambe came 
from that bedroom, she joined in the man's displeasure at his 
having been disturbed. He went for his bath. The wife 
followed, and used the powder as she had done the day 
before, turning his feet to hoofs. He begged and pleaded. 
She again forgave him, and fixed the feet again. And they 
two came out of the bathroom and had their breakfast as 
usual. He went to his work, and the day wore on. At 
night he again deserted his wife. The next morning there 
was the same confusion in arousing him as on the other days. 

His wife accompanied him to the bathroom as usual. 
While he was in the bath, and before he was done bathing, 
she left the room, and told the new Ilambe, " You sit down 
near the bathroom door. You will see him come out." The 
visitor replied, " It is well " ; and she sat down. And Ilambe 
went into the bathroom again. 

When the man got out of his bath, as soon as he attempted 
to dress himself, Ilambe, without saying anything or making 
any complaint, went behind him, and having the whole roll 
of powder with her, she opened the bundle, flung it on his 
back, and said, " You go back to where you came from ! " 
Instantly he was changed to a mbinde, and he began to leap 
about as a goat. Then Ilambe cried out to the other Ilambe 
at the door, "Are you ready to receive him? He 's coming! " 
and she opened the door. Out ran the mbinde, leaped from the 
house, dashed through the town and off to the forest, the people 
shouting in derision, " Ha ! ha ! ha ! So, indeed, that handsome 
man was the mbinde that was taken to Ilambe's house! " 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 351 

Then the wife said to the other Ilambe, " Did you see your 
man? Call him! That 's he running oft' there! " The next 
day Ilambe said to the visitor, " Send word for your people 
that they may come for you." 

The following day they were sent for, and they came to 
Ilambe 's house. After they had arrived, Ilambe sent word 
to her father, "Have your place cleaned, I am coming to 
enter a complaint." The father replied, "Very well!" 
Ompunga came and swept the place. Seats were prepared 
in the street. Ilambe summoned the visitor and her people, 
saying, "Let us all go to my father's house." 

So they went there, and Ilambe made her complaint, tell- 
ing all from the beginning: how she obtained a husband; 
how the other Il&mbe had come; how she received her 
kindly; how she even had been willing to share her hus- 
band with her, but how the new Ilambe had monopolized 
instead of simply sharing; and how things had become so 
bad that she had to send the man back to his beast origin. 
Turning to the visiting people, she said, "I have nothing 
more to say except that your sister Ilambe is not going 
back to your town, but has to be my slave all the days of 
my life." 

So the king's council justified her, and pronounced the 
judgment just. The people scattered to their homes. And 
the two sisters went to their house, with the other Ilambe 
as their slave. 

IV. The Fairy Wife. 

In his great town, King Ra-Mborakinda, or Ra-Nyambie, 
lived in glory with all his wives and sons and daughters. 
Some of his great and favored sons had large business and 
great wealth. But there was one of the sons, named Nkombe, 
whose mother was not a favorite wife of the king, so this 
Nkombe was poor. Everything went against him, and his 
life was quite miserable ; only, he had a gun, and he knew 
how to shoot; that was all. So he thought, "I 'm tired of 
this kind of life. I better leave and go off by myself." 



352 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

He gathered together the few things that belonged to him, 

— a few plates and pots, and his gun and ammunition, — 
and went away. He went far into the forest, and with his 
machete began to clear a little place for a camping-ground 
(olako). 

He fixed up his camp, and next morning went out hunt- 
ing. When he began to feel hungry, he turned back to 
cook his food. On his return he had fresh meat with him ; 
this he cooked, set it on the table, and ate. After eating, 
he cleared off the table, washed the dishes, brushed up the 
floor, and the new meat that was left he put on the orala 
(drying-frame) for next day's use. So that day's work was 
done. 

Next day he again leaves the camp, and with his gun is off 
again to his hunting. At noon he comes back with his meat, 

— antelope, or wild pig, or whatever it may be. He cooks 
his food, eats; and that day's work is done jusfc as the day 
before. 

So he did many days. After each day's work he was so tired 
and felt so lonely he wished he had a mother or some one to 
do for him. 

Unknown to him, since he had come to that olako, there 
was a woman named Ilambe, who belonged to the awiri 
(fairies), who secretly had observed all that he did. One 
day she thought to herself, " Oh, I am sorry for this 
man; I think that as I have the power I will turn myself 
into a human being and help him, for I do not like to see 
him suffer." So she said to herself, "To-day I will cause 
Nkombe to be unsuccessful, so that he shall kill only ntori 
(a big forest rat), and I will hide myself in ntori." 

So Nkombe hunted ]ong and far that day, and saw nothing 
worthy of being shot. He was getting hungry, and mur- 
mured, "Ah! I have not been able to kill anything to-day." 
But presently he saw ntori pass by, and he said, " Well, I '11 
have to take this small animal, ntori! " He shot it, and took 
it with him to his camp. When he reached the olako, as he 
had other meat on the orala, and was in a hurry, after singe- 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 353 

ing and cleaning ntori, he threw it on the orala, and took the 
older dried meat, and began to cook it for his snpper. He 
went on with his usual day's work, as it took only a little 
while to arrange ntori on the orala. 

Next day he went out as usual on his hunting journey. 
While he was away, and before he returned, Ilambe had crept 
out of the head of ntori. She brushed up the camp, and 
made everything neat and clean. She began to cook, taking 
meat from the drying-frame. She cooked it very nicely, and 
ate part, — her share, just enough to satisfy her appetite. 
Then she crept back into ntori's head, as she knew Nkombe 
must be about starting back. 

Late in the afternoon Nkombe returned with some wild 
meat. He took down dried meat from the orala, leaving 
his fresh meat unattended to, for he was in a hurry to 
cook, being hungry. He went to his little hut to get plate, 
kettle, and so forth. To his surprise, on the table was 
everything ready, food and plate and drink. He ex- 
claimed, " What word is this ? Where did this come from ? 
Is this the work of my mother's spirit? She has pitied me 
and has come and done this. I wish I knew where she came 
from." 

This occurred during three successive days, just the same 
each day. Nkombe was puzzled. He wanted to find out, 
and decided to go to the great prophet, Ra-Marange. The 
prophet saw him coming, and greeted him, "Sale! (Hail) 
my son, sale!" "Mbolo," replied Nkombe. Ra-Marange 
continued, "What did you come for? What are you 
doing?" "I come for you to make medicine, that you 
may prophesy for me about a matter I want to find out." 

Ra-Marange said, "Child, I am old, and do not do such 
things now. I have given the power to Ogula-ya-impazj^a- 
vazya " [so called because his body was all-covered-by-a- 
disease-of -pimples]. "Well, where shall I go to him?" 
The prophet replied, "He is not far." 

Nkombe starts to go to Ogula-ya-impazya-vazya, who pres- 
ently sees him coming. As soon as Nkombe reached him, 

23 



354 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Ogula-ya-impazya-vazya said, " If you come to me for medi- 
cine, good, for that is my only business ; but if for anything 
else, clear off! " "Yes, that is what I came for." 

So Ogula-ya-impazya-vazya began to kindle his big fire. 
Nkombe was surprised, not knowing what was to be done 
with the fire. The next minute he sees Ogula-ya-impazya- 
vazya throw himself into the flames. Nkombe was startled 
and afraid, thinking, " Is this man going to kill himself for 
me ? " The prophet rolled himself several times in the fire 
in order to get the power. Some of his pimples on his body 
burst in the flame ; and he jumped out, ready with his power 
to do the medicine. He said, " Hah, repeat your story ; I am 
ready! " Nkombe told all his story, — how he had worked 
for himself, and how for a few days past he had been helped 
by some one, and wanted to know who it was, if Ogula-ya- 
impazya-vazya would please tell him. " Hah, that 's a small 
matter for me! " So the prophet told him, "You killed ntori 
for yourself a few days ago, and this being is a woman who 
has come to be your wife, and has hidden herself in ntori." 
"But," said Nkombe, "how shall I be able to catch her, so 
that she shall be a real woman, for I do not see her?" 

"I '11 let you know how. Go back and hunt all the same 
for three days. On the fourth day go out as usual, but do 
not go hunting. Hide near the olako, — near, but not where 
you will be seen." Then the prophet gave Nkombe a pre- 
pared powder, and told him to keep it carefully. He gave 
him also a small cornucopia (ozyoto) full of a bruised medi- 
cinal leaf, and told him, " Go and put these two medicines in 
a secret place near your olako. On the fourth day have these 
two medicines with you where you hide. When you see her 
come out, and while she is doing your work, you will run 
and seize her, and say to her, "You are my wife." She 
will not understand your language, and will murmur and 
shake her head and resist. But when you hold her fast, 
sprinkle the powder all over her body. Then take the ozoto, 
and squeeze some of the juice in her nostrils, eyes, and 
mouth. She will begin to sneeze. Repeat the words, 'You 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 355 

are my wife, my wife ! ' Then she will understand you, and 
will yield." 

So Nkombe took the medicines, and obeyed directions ; hid 
the medicines and hunted the three days, his heart bursting 
with anxiety to get the days done that seemed so long. At 
last the three days were over and the fourth day came. 

Now the woman, by the power that was with her, knew 
all these things ; she knew she would be caught that day. 

After Nkombe had left in the morning with the medicines, 
had hidden himself, and was waiting for the hours to 
pass, the woman, hesitating on her fate, did not come out 
quickly as on the other days. But finally Nkombe saw the 
pieces of meat on the frames shake. And out of ntori 's 
head came a beautiful woman with clean soft skin. He 
could hardly restrain himself. She went on with all the 
usual work, — cooking, and so forth. But that day she did 
not divide nor partake of the food, but put all of it on the 
table. When he saw she had finished, and was washing her 
hands preparatory to jumping back into ntori on the orala, 
he came out of the bushes, and stepping cautiously but 
rapidly, rushed to seize her. He caught her. She be- 
gan to resist, and he followed the prophet's directions. 
The woman at first was murmuring and sobbing, and Nkombe 
was trying to calm her with the words "My wife." Finally, 
under the powder, she quieted. When the juice was dropped 
into her mouth, she was able to speak his language. She told 
him all her story, — how she had pitied him, and had entered 
into ntori, and everything else. " But, " she said, " there is 
one more thing I must tell you. I have come indeed to be 
your wife, and I have the power to make you rich or poor, 
happy or unhappy. I will give you only one rule : Be good 
to me, and I will be so to you ; but never say to me that I 
came from the low origin of a rat's head." Nkombe ex- 
claimed, " No, no ! You have done so much for me, I could 
never so humiliate you." "You speak well, but be very 
careful not to break your promise." So they ate and finished 
the day's work. 



356 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Next day the woman wanted to bnild a town by word of 
her power. She said, " Mwe [Sir] Nkombe, surely you will 
not live in an olako all your life. Look for a site for a town, 
and mark it with stakes for its length and width." Nkombe 
was puzzled. He had a wife, but where would he get mate- 
rials for a house; for he was as poor of goods as he was be- 
fore ? Being troubled, he made no reply to his wife, and did 
not go to mark a site. At night they retired, Nkombe still 
troubled about the building of a town ; but Ilambe was smil- 
ing in her heart, for she knew what she would do. So she 
made him fall into a deep sleep. She went out at night a 
short distance, and chose a good town-site. She spoke to 
her ngalo (a guardian-spirit charm), "Ngalo mine, before 
morning I want to see all this place cleared, and covered 
with nice houses, and all the houses furnished and supplied 
with men and maid servants." And she returned to bed. 

Before daybreak everything was ready, as Ilambe desired. 
The ngalo had made the olako disappear, and Nkombe and 
wife were sleeping inside their nice house. When morning 
came, Nkombe did not know where he was, nor even on 
which side to get out of bed. He exclaimed, " What is this 
word?" "You are in your own house and in your own 
town." So both went out to inspect their town and their 
servants. Nkombe did not know how well to thank her, so 
glad was he. 

Later the wife became a mother, and a son was born. 
Nkombe called this first-born Ogula. Again, a daughter 
was born. Then the wife told her ngalo to bring ships of 
wealth. The next day ships were seen coming. Nkombe 
went on board and had a conversation with the captains. 
They stayed a few days, and then sailed away, leaving 
Nkombe a cargo of wealth. Another time ships came, and 
Nkombe went off on board as before ; and these ships sailed 
away, also leaving wealth. Other children were born to 
them. Children of a fairy mother are called " aganlo " ; they 
grow very fast, and are very wise. 

Other ships came. One day one comes, and Nkombe, hav- 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 35T 

ing gone on board, has there a convivial time, stays all day, 
and returns nearly drunk. The wife says to him, "Nkombe, 
often you come from ships looking in this way, and I do not 
like it. I have spoken with you often, that if a food or a 
drink is not good in its effects, it is better to leave it off. 
But you do not care for my words." Nkombe, under the 
influence of liquor, was vexed with her, rebuked her, 
and began to use hard words with orawo (insult) : " You — 
you — this woman who — but I won't finish it." Soon, 
however, he took up the quarrel again, saying, "A person 
can know from your manners that you came out of — " 
The wife said, "When you are drunk, you say half sen- 
tences; why hold back? Say what you want to say." 

He shouted angrily, "Yes, if I want to say it, I will say it! 
It was my own ntori that I killed. If I had not killed it, 
would you have come out of it ? " Then Ilambe said, " Please 
repeat that; I do not quite understand you." He repeated 
it. She exclaimed, "Eh!" but said no more, and waited 
until morning, when he would be sober. 

So early in the morning she told him to get up, so that she 
could do her housework. She did the morning's work, wash- 
ing things neatly but rapidly. Then she called her sons and 
daughters, and in their presence said to their father, " You said 
so-and-so yesterday; now I am off and with my children." 

Nkombe knew he had said the forbidden words. He 
pleaded for mercy; but she replied, "No, you broke your 
promise." The two elder children pleaded for their father : 
"It was only once. Though a bad thing, it cannot break 
a marriage. Forgive it." But the mother persisted, "No!" 
Then the two elder ones said they would not leave their 
father. 

So she said to him, "Now be thankful you have these two. 
If it was not for them, I would put you back where you were 
just as I found you; but for the sake of these two children, 
I leave some of my power with them." Then to those two 
she said, " You will call on me for help when you have need, 
and I will be near to help you." 



358 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

So she took the two younger ones, and said to their father, 
" As this place is quite open, Nkombe, sit you here and see 
me depart." Nkombe did so. He and the two older chil- 
dren watched the mother and the two younger ones walk 
down the path from the town. They went to the bank of 
the river, and, wading in, disappeared in the river depths. 

V. The Thieves and their Enchanted House. 

Ra-Mborakinda had his big town of men and women and 
children, all in good condition. But a kind of plague came 
upon the people suddenly, killing many. In a short time it 
destroyed most of the inhabitants, and finally but few were 
left. 

So one of the elder sons said to a younger one, " Let us 
flee for our lives ! " This elder brother's name was Ogula, 
and the younger brother's name was Nkombe. When Ogula 
had thus said, u Let us flee for our lives," Nkombe agreed. 
Ogula took as his servant a boy, and together with Nkombe 
they went out. They went aimlessly, not following any par- 
ticular plan, but vaguely hoping to happen on any place. 

They went, went, wandering on, on, till they came to a small 
hut, almost too miserable for a dwelling. But in their extrem- 
ity they said, " Oh ! there is a house ! Let us go to it ; maybe 
we '11 find shelter there." So they walked up to it, and, to 
their surprise, saw there an old man mending a piece of canvas. 

He saluted them, and asked them where they came from. 
They told their story, and Ogula asked the old man whether 
he would, of his kindness, give them shelter. He said, " Yes, 
if you are willing to do as I tell you ; for living here is hard, 
and there is nothing to eat. I have to cut firewood and 
carry it to the city (osenge) far away, and sell it there. That 
city belongs to a big merchant." 

Ogula said, " Yes ; we are willing." So the next day 
Ogula himself and Nkombe and their servant set themselves 
ready for work. After they had cut their firewood, they asked 
the old man the way to the city. He directed them. They 
went, sold their firewood, and brought food. This they did 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 359 

many times, cutting firewood and going to the city and 
buying food ; and they each built a house of their own near 
the old man's hut. 

But after a while Ogula began to tire of this kind of life ; 
so he said to himself, " If I only had a gun, I could go hunt- 
ing. But even without the gun, I will go out and see what 
I can see." So he went out alone, not calling his brother or 
his servant to go with him. He went and went, on, on, for 
a half-day's journey, till he happened to come to a large house 
built in a very strange style, having no door at its side and 
with a flat roof. The place looked clean, as if kept in order 
by people. He approached cautiously; but looking around, 
he saw no one at all. He said to himself, " Who owns this 
place ? Surely some one owns it, for it is so clean ; but I see 
no one here. I won't leave this place to-day till I know 
who lives here." He decided to retire a little and climb up a 
tall tree overlooking the house and watch from there. He 
was very hungry, having had no food that day, but he still 
decided to wait and see what was about the house. 

After he had been up the tree a long while, late in the after- 
noon he saw a number of men coming. He saw one of 
them climb up the side of the house to the roof, where was a 
trap-door. All of the men had bundles of goods. The first 
one who had climbed to the roof spoke a few words to the door 
as he stood before it, and the two parts of the door flew 
open of themselves. Then the other men climbed up with 
their bundles, and went into the house. 

All this Ogula could see from his tree-top. He said to 
himself, " Now I am hungry, and must go, for I have seen 
enough to-day. I see that this house is occupied, and by 
men, and how they enter; it is enough for to-day." He 
thought it time to move before any of the people should 
come out of the house. He came down rapidly, and went 
back to the little hut of the old man. 

When he got to his own house, his brother Nkombe asked, 
" Where have you been all day ? " Ogula said, " I was tired 
of working, and took a walk to the forest, and missed my 



360 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

way." But he did not tell his brother the story of what he 
had seen. 

Ogula then ate a little and went to bed, though it was not 
very late. He went thus soon to bed, for he wanted to go 
early next day to inspect the big house again. So, very, 
very early, before daylight, Ogula was up and off, for he did 
not wish his brother to ask him where he was going. 

He remembered the way to the big house, and went directly 
there. He climbed his tree. He looked and saw that the door 
of the house was open. He waited a little while, and then saw 
the men climbing out of the door. Their leader was the last ; 
he spoke a cabalistic word, pressed his foot on the threshold, 
as the two sides of the door folded together, and it was closed. 

After they had been gone quite awhile, Ogula thought he 
would try to enter the house, first seeking what was the way 
to open it. He said to himself, " I know they have goods 
there, for I have seen them carried in." So he descended 
from the tree, and going to the house, climbed up the 
side. When he got to the top, he searched for something by 
which the door could be opened. He saw nothing like a key 
or lock or handle. Then he remembered the words he had 
heard the leader use, and thought, " Perhaps they were the 
means by which the door was opened. " So he uttered the 
words, " Yaginla mie, ka nungwa, aweme ! " (Obey me, 
and thyself open ! ) and, to his surprise, the door flew open. 
Then he went down the flight of steps leading below to the 
interior of the house. He was startled when he saw the room 
full of all kinds of money and goods and wealth that any one 
could wish to have. One could have taken away a great deal 
without its absence being noticed, so abundant was the amount. 

Ogula thought, " Is n't this fine ! But I must be quick, 
lest the owners of this house catch me here." So he took 
a cloth, and put into it a few small articles and a quantity 
of cash. He tied up the bundle, went up the stairway, and 
walked out of the door which he had left open. At the top 
he remembered the word " Nunja ! " (Shut !) which the leader 
had used for closing. He spoke it ; and the door shut. He 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 361 

hasted awaj r , and back to the hut of the old man. He did 
not enter it, but went to his own house and there hid the 
bundle. He told no one anything, neither the old man nor 
his servant nor even his brother. Soon the brother came 
over from his house, saying, u Brother ! I looked for you 
this morning ; you must have gone out very early." " Yes, 
I went out early, for I am tired of seeing so little ; so I went 
out to see what I could see." 

The next day he did. the same. On this trip he took not 
only money from the house, but some fine clothing for himself 
to wear. As before, on emerging at the top of the house, he 
spoke the word " Nunja ! " the door closed, and he was away 
again, no one having seen him. When Ogula got back to his 
house, Nkombe asked him the same question of the day before, 
" Where have you been ? " and he made only the evasive 
answer. But Nkombe began to be troubled. He feared 
something was wrong, and he determined to find out what 
was the matter. So he decided to get up next morning just 
as early as Ogula. The reason that Ogula did not tell 
Nkombe was because the latter had a bad jealous heart, and 
was very covetous of money. So early in the morning Ogula 
was off. He did not know that Nkombe had any thought of 
following him. But as soon as Nkombe saw Ogula start, he 
followed him cautiously, so that he might find out what his 
brother was doing. 

Ogula walked on straight and rapidly, and never looked 
behind, for he had no suspicion that he was being followed. 
When he got to the house, as usual he ordered the door to 
open, and descended inside. While he was beginning to 
select the things he wanted to take, to his surprise he saw 
Nkombe also descending the stairway. Ogula said, "Nkombe ! 
what is this ? Who showed you the way ? Who told you to 
come here ? I am troubled to find you here ; for this will be 
the end of you ! I knew it was not safe for you to come here. 
What I took was for us both." 

Nkombe said, " No ! you hid it from me. I have found it 
now. I will be rich for myself." By this time Ogula had 



362 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

tied up his bundle ready to go out. But Nkombe was snatch- 
ing up a large quantity from every side. Ogula said, 
" Nkombe ! be quick ! You do not know how to shut that 
door, and it will not be safe for us to be found here by those 
people." But Nkombe was not satisfied with one bundle, he 
was still gathering up other bundles. Ogula wearied of wait- 
ing and begging of Nkombe to come, so he said he must 
go and leave him, saying, " Now, Nkombe, it is not safe to 
wait longer. I have waited for you and begged you to leave 
with me ; so I go alone. You cannot get out with all those 
bundles." 

But Nkombe would not listen. So Ogula went out, and 
spoke the word that closed the door, leaving Nkombe in the 
house. However, being anxious for his brother, Ogula did not 
go away, but climbed his tree to see what would happen. 

When Nkombe had entered the house, he had with him a 
big, sharp knife. 

Ogula waited outside till those people should come. Soon 
they came. The leader did as usual, being the first to climb 
to the house-top and to order the door to open. The door 
flew open, and the leader descended. As soon as he entered, 
he found another man, Nkombe, in the house. The leader 
asked, " Who are you, and how did you get in here ? '' 
Nkombe did not reply, but drawing his knife, plunged it into 
the leader's neck. With one outcry the man fell dead. By 
this time some of the other men had climbed up and were 
about to enter. When they got inside, they saw their leader 
lying dead, and this stranger standing armed. One of the men 
drew his pistol and shot Nkombe. [Observe the pistol; all these 
folk-lore stories disregard anachronisms or even impossibili- 
ties.] They carried his dead body to the roof, and threw it 
off to the ground. All this Ogula saw, looking from the tree- 
top down into the house. 

Then those people began to be perplexed and suspicious, 
saying, " This is not the work of only one, for we found the 
door closed on our arrival. So this person inside must have 
had some associate outside. How shall we find it out ? " 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 363 

They began to plan, each one with his proposition. One 
said, " Let us go and bury the dead body." Another, " Let 
us leave it and go on with our business, and if on our return 
the body is missing, that will be a proof that a partner has 
taken it. Then we will get on the track and find where the 
body was taken." And they agreed that he whose plan 
proved successful should be their new leader. So they 
closed the door, left Nkombe's dead body lying, and went off 
on their usual business. 

After they had been gone quite a while, Ogula came down 
quickly from the tree. He tried to carry the body of his 
brother without dragging it so as not to leave any sign of a 
trail. And he did not follow the path, but walked parallel 
with it among the bushes. He hid the body, and then went 
away to his house. He called his servant, telling him that 
Nkombe was dead, and that he wanted him to come help bury 
the body. He did not call the old man, but only told him that 
his brother was dead. 

He and the servant went to the spot where he had left his 
brother's body. They carried it far into the forest, buried it, 
and then went back to their house. 

When the thieves came again to their house, they missed 
the dead body, so that part of their plan had proved true ; 
and they said to the one who had proposed it, " You were 
right. You are our leader. What is your next order ? " He 
said, " To-morrow we will not go out to do our business, but 
we will go out to hunt for this other man." 

The next day they went, and scattering searched on all 
paths to see whether they would meet with some one or see 
some house. Some of them who were on a certain path came 
to the huts of the old man and Ogula. The first person 
they saw was the old man sitting in his doorway. They 
stopped and saluted. They asked him a few questions, and 
then consulting together agreed to return to their house and 
come back next day, hoping to find out something from the 
old man. They went back to their house. Previous to this, 
from the time that Ogula had been stealing goods he had built 



364 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

with his servant a little village of his own some distance from 
the old man's hut. On this first coming of the thieves, Ognla, 
hidden in his house, had seen them, and he said to himself, " As 
they now know of this place, I better go away, for fear this thing 
be found out, and they kill me as they did my brother." So 
at night he left that house and went off to his village. 

In the morning of the next day, when the thieves came, they 
brought liquor, for they had planned that they would make 
this old man drunk, that he might talk when he was foolish 
with liquor. 

They came to the old man's and saluted him. They sat 
and conversed, asking him, " How many people are here ? Are 
you always living alone ? " At first he replied, " Yes, I live 
alone." " But you are so old, how do you get your food by 
yourself ? Would you like to taste a nice drink ? We are 
sorry for you in your lack of comforts." " Yes, I would like 
to taste it." 

So they opened their liquor, drank a little themselves, 
and gave to him. After he had drunk he became talkative, 
and began conversation again : " Oh, yes, you asked me if I 
lived alone. But not quite alone. There is a young man 
here." The thieves were glad to hear him talk, and gave 
him more liquor. He drank ; they asked more questions, 
" You said there was another man with you ; where is he ? " 
Then the old man repeated the whole story of the coming of 
the brothers, to the death of one of them ; and added, " A 
few days ago one of them came to tell me he was going to 
bury his brother; but I do not know when or how he died." 
So they asked the old man, " You know where he was 
buried?" "No." " But where is that living brother?" 
" Oh, he has just left me, and is gone to his new place not 
very far away. I have not been there, but you can easily 
find it." 

They consulted among themselves. u As this other man may 
hear of what we are about, we will go away to-day, disguise 
ourselves, and to-morrow seek for his place." So they all left. 

Next day two or three came disguised, and found Ogula's 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 365 

new house in the afternoon. He did not recognize their 
faces. He welcomed them as strangers and treated them 
politely. They asked, " Is this your house ? Do you live 
alone?" He answered straightly, but did not mention his 
brother. But they felt they had enough proof of who he 
was, and left. But before they left they had observed the 
number and location of the rooms and the shape of the house. 
In the house was a large public reception and sitting room, 
and from it were doors leading to the servant's room and to a 
little entry opening into Ogula's room. 

The next day Ogula and his servant were doing their work 
of refining the gum-copal they had gathered for trade ; it was 
being boiled in an enormous kettle. When this copal was 
melted, the kettle was set, with its boiling-hot pitchy contents, 
in that little entry. In the afternoon came the whole com- 
pany of thieves, all disguised. They said, " We have come 
to make your acquaintance, and to relieve your loneliness by 
an evening's amusement." Ogula began to prepare them 
food. They sat at the food, eating and drinking ; had conver- 
sation, and spent the evening laughing and playing. At 
night most of them pretended to be drunk and sleepy, and 
stretched themselves on the floor of the large room as if in 
sleep. 

Ogula also had been drinking, and said he was tired and 
would go to bed. But his servant was sober ; he saw what 
the men were doing, and suspected evil. He thought: "Ah ! 
my master is drunk, and these people are strangers. What 
will happen?" So when the lights were put out and he was 
going to bed, he left open the door of the little entry and 
locked the door of his master's room. After midnight the 
thieves rose and consulted. " Let us go and kill him." They 
arose and trod softly toward Ogula's room. Not quite sober, 
they missed the proper way, stepped through the open door of 
the little entry, and stumbled into the caldron of copal. It 
was still hot, and stuck to their bodies like pitch. They 
were in agony, but did not dare to cry out. They all were 
crawling covered with the hot gum, except the last man, who 



366 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

had jumped over the bodies of those who had fallen before 
him ; and he ran away to their house. 

But Ogula was sleeping, ignorant of what was going on. 

In the morning the boy, who also had slept, on opening 
the house, found the kettle full of tarred limbs of dead human 
bodies. He knocked at Ogula's door and waked him. But 
Ogula said, " Don't disturb me, I am so tired from last night's 
revel." "Yes, but get up and see what has happened." 
Ogula came and saw. Then he told the lad that but for him 
he would have been dead. Ogula thenceforth took him as a 
brother. Then he and the boy had a big work of throwing 
out the bodies of the thieves. Ogula was not afraid of a 
charge of murder, for the thieves had tumbled themselves 
into the scalding contents of the kettle. He had enough 
wealth, and did not go again to the thieves' house. 

But that one man who had escaped was wishing for re- 
venge, yet was afraid to come to Ogula's house by himself. 
Time went on. Ogula remained quiet. But his enemy still 
sought revenge, waiting for an opportunity. 

Gradually, too, Ogula had forgotten his enemy's face ; for 
the thieves were many, and all disguised, and he would be 
unable to distinguish which one had escaped. 

On a time it happened that this thief went far to another 
country; and while he was there, Ogula also happened to 
journey to that very town. The lad had said, being now a 
young man, " May I go too ? " " Yes, you may, for you are 
like a brother. You must go wherever I do." On the very 
second day in the town the two, Ogula and the thief, met. 
The thief recognized Ogula; but Ogula did not recognize 
him, and neither spoke; but the young man, with better 
memory, said to himself, " I have seen this man somewhere." 
He looked closely, but said nothing. 

The next day the thief made a feast. He met Ogula again 
on the street and saluted him, " Mbolo ! I am making a feast. 
You seem a stranger. I would like you to come." " Yes ; 
where ? " " At such-and-such a place." " Yes, I will come. 
But this attendant of mine is good, and must be invited too." 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 367 

" Yes, I have no objections." Next evening the feast was 
held, and people came to it. The thief placed Ogula and his 
servant near himself. There was much eating and drinking. 
The thief became excited, and determined to kill Ogula at the 
table by sticking him with a knife. 

All the while that the thief was watching Ogula, the ser- 
vant was watching the thief. Presently the latter turned 
slightly and began to draw a knife. The servant watched 
him closely. The thief's knife was out, and the servant's 
knife was out too. But the thief was watching only Ogula, 
and did not know what the servant was doing. Just as the 
thief was about to thrust at Ogula, the servant jumped and 
thrust his knife into the thief's neck. The man fell, blood 
flowing abundantly over the table. The guests were alarmed, 
and were about to seize the servant, who pointed at the drawn 
knife in the man's hand that had been intended for his master ; 
and then he told their whole story. 

So the guests decided that there was no charge against 
Ogula and his servant, and scattered. The next day Ogula 
and his servant left. As he knew that that man was the last 
of the company of thieves, he said, in gladness, "Now! 
Glory ! " Then he thought, " All that wealth is mine, since 
this last one who tried to take my life is dead." 

As he had seen enough of the world by travel, he decided 
to stay in one place. He would call people to live with him 
in a new town which he would build for them around that 
enchanted house of the thieves, which he took as his own with 
all its wealth. And he lived long in that house in great 
glory, with wife and children and retainers and slaves. 

VI. Banga of the Five Faces. 

Ra-Mborakinda lived in his town with his sons and daugh- 
ters and his glory. One son was Nkombe, and another Ogula, 
whose full name was Ogula-keva-anlingo-n'-ogenda (Ogula- 
who-goes-faster-thau -water) ; but they were not of the same 
mother. 

Ogula grew up without taking any wife. He became a 



368 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

great man, with knowledge of sorcery. One clay his father 
said to him, " Ognla, as you are a big man now, I think it is 
time for you to have a wife. 1 think you had better choose 
from one of my young wives." Ogula replied, "No, I will 
get a wife in my own way." So one day he went to another 
osenge (clearing) of a town which belonged to a man of the 
awiri (spirits; plural of "ombwiri "), i. <?., one who possessed 
magic power, and obtained one of his daughters. Her name 
was Ikagu-ny' -awiri. 

He brought the girl home to his father's house, where she 
was very much admired as " a fine woman ! a fine woman ! " 
She was indeed very pretty. Then Ogula said to her, " As 
3^ou are now my wife, you must be orunda (set apart from) 
to other men, and I will be orunda to other women, even if 
I go to work at another place." And she replied, "It is 
well." 

At another time Ogula said, "I think it better for us to 
move away from my father's town, and put my house just a 
little way off." After the new house was finished they moved 
to it, and lived by themselves. Ogula had business else- 
where that compelled him to be often absent, returning at 
times in the afternoons. Whenever Nkombe knew that Ogula 
was out, he would come and annoy Ikagu with solicitation to 
leave her husband and marry him. Ogula knew of this, for 
he had a ngalo (a special fetich) that enabled him to know 
what was going on elsewhere. The wife would say, "Ah, 
Nkombe! No, I know that you are my husband's brother; 
but I do not want you ! " Then, when it was time for Ogula 
to return, Nkombe would go off. That went on for many 
days; Nkombe visiting Ikagu whenever he had opportunity, 
and the wife refusing him every time. It went on so long 
that at last Ogula thought that he would speak to his wife 
about it. 

So he began to ask her, "Is everything all right? Has any 
one been troubling you ? " She answered, "No." He asked 
her again, and again she said, "No." Thus it went on, — ■ 
Nkombe coming; Ogula asking questions; and the wife, un- 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 369 

willing to make trouble between the two brothers, denying. 
But one day the trouble that Nkombe made the wife was so 
great that Ogula, with the aid of his ngalo, thought surely 
she would acknowledge. But she did not; for that day, 
when he came and called his wife into their bedroom, and 
asked her, she only asserted weakly, "No trouble." Then 
he said, "Do you think I do not know? You are a good 
wife to me. I know all that has passed between you and 
Nkombe." And he added, "As Nkombe is making you all 
this trouble, I will have to remove again far from my father's 
town, and go elsewhere." So he went far away, and built 
a small village for himself and wife. They put it in good 
order, and made the pathway wide and clean. 

But in his going far from his father's town he had un- 
knowingly come near to another town that belonged to 
another Ra-Mborakinda, who also had great power and 
many sons and daughters. One of the sons also was named 
Ogula, just as old and as large as this first Ogula. One 
day this Ogula went out hunting with his gun. He went 
far, leaving his town far away, going on and on till he saw 
it was late in the day and that it was time to go back. 

Just as he was about returning he came to a nice clean 
pathway, and he wondered, "So here are people? This fine 
path! who cleans it? and where does it lead to?" So he 
thought he would go and see for himself; and he started on 
the path. He had not gone far before he came to the house 
of Ogula. There he stood, admiring the house and grounds. 
"A fine house! a fine house! " 

When Ogula 'saw Ogula 2d standing in the street, he in- 
vited him up into the house. They asked each other a few 
questions, became acquainted, and made friendship; and 
Ogula kept Ogula 2d for two days as his guest. Then Ogula 
2d said, " They may think me lost, in town, after these two 
days. Thanks for your kindness, but I had better go." And 
he added, " Some day I will send for you, and you will come 
to visit me, that I may show you hospitality." 

Ogula 2d went back to his place. He had a sister who 

24 



3T0 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

was a very troublesome woman, assuming authority and giv- 
ing orders like a man. Her name was Banga-yi-baganlo-tani 
(Banga-of -five-faces). Though her father, the king, and her 
brother were still living, she insisted on governing the town. 
When any one displeased her, or she was vexed with any 
one, she would order that person to lie down before a cannon 
and be shot to pieces. The father was wearied of her annoy- 
ances, but did not know what to do with her. 

As Ogula 2d had left word with Ogula that he would in- 
vite him on another day, he did so. Ogula accepted; but as 
the invitation was only to himself, he did not take his wife, 
but went by himself, and was welcomed and entertained. 

When it was late afternoon, he was about to go back, but 
Ogula 2d said, "You were so kind to me; do not go back 
to-day. Stay with me." And Ogula consented. 

In asking Ogula to stay, Ogula 2d thought, " As his wife 
is not here, perhaps he will want another woman. I have 
my sister here; but if I first offer her, it will be a shame, 
for he has not asked for any one " [an actual native Afri- 
can custom, to give a guest a temporary wife, as one of the 
usual hospitalities. The custom is not resented by the 
women]. 

All this while Ogula had not seen the sister. When they 
were ready for the evening meal, Ogula 2d thought it time 
to call his sister to see the guest. She fixed herself up 
finely, clean, and with ornaments. She came and sat in the 
house, and there were the usual salutations of "Mbolo!" 
"Ai, mbolo! " and some conversation. 

While they were talking, Banga had her face cast 
down with eyes to the ground. And when she lifted her 
eyes to look at Ogula, her face changed. From the time 
she came in till meal-time, she made a succession of these 
changes of her face, thinking that Ogula would be surprised, 
and would admire the changes, and expecting that he would 
ask her brother for her. 

She waited and waited ; Ogula saw all these five changes 
of her face, but was not attracted. They went to their food, 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 371 

and ate and finished. And they talked on till bedtime ; but 
Ogula had said nothing of love. Banga was annoyed and 
disappointed ; she went to her bed piqued and with resentful 
thoughts. 

The next morning Ogula said it was time to go back to his 
wife. When he was getting ready to go, Banga said to him, 
" Have you a wife ? " 

He answered, " Yes. " She said, " I want her to come and 
visit me some day." And Ogula agreed. He went, and 
returning to his house, told his wife that Banga wanted to 
see her. 

After Ogula was gone, Banga asked her brother about 
Ogula's wife. " Is she pretty ? " And he told her how finely 
the wife had looked. Banga was not pleased at that, was 
jealous, and waited till Ikagu should come that she might see 
for herself. " I will see if she is more beautiful than I with 
my five countenances." Subsequently Banga chose a day, 
and sent for Ikagu. She dressed for the journey, and Ogula, 
not being invited, took her only half-way. 

When Ogula's wife arrived, Banga saw that it was true 
that she was pretty, and of graceful carriage in her walking, 
and she did not wonder that her husband was charmed with her. 
But she hid her jealousy, and pretended to be pleased with her 
visitor. Ogula's wife did not spend the night there ; when she 
thought it time to go, she said good-bye, and turned to leave. 

When she had gone, Banga was planning for a contest with 
her. She said to herself, " Now I see why that man made me 
feel ashamed at his not asking for my love, — because his 
wife is so beautiful. She shall see that I will have her killed, 
and I shall have her husband. " 

So after a few days she sent word to Ogula's wife, " Pre- 
pare yourself for a fight, and come and meet me at my father's 
house." 

But the wife said to Ogula, " I have done nothing. What is 
the fight for ? " Nevertheless, she began to prepare a fighting- 
dress, and before it was finished another messenger came with 
word, "You are waited for." 



372 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

So she said, " As it is not a call for peace, I had better put 
on a dress that befits blood." So she dressed in red. After 
she was dressed she started, and Ogula went with her, to hear 
what was the ground of the challenge. 

As soon as they got to the town, they found Banga strid- 
ing up and down the street. Her cannon was already loaded, 
waiting to be fired. When Ogula wanted to know what the 
"palaver " was, Banga said, "I do not want to talk with you; 
I only want you to obey my orders. " 

But Ikagu wanted to know what the trouble was, and 
began to ask, "What have I done?" Banga only repeated, 
" I don't want any words from you ; only, you come and lie 
down in front of this cannon." Ikagu obeyed, and lay down, 
and Banga ordered her men to fire the cannon. 

By this time Ogula, by the power of his ngalo, had changed 
the places of the two women. When the cannon was fired, 
and the smoke had cleared away, the people who stood by 
saw Ikagu standing safe by her husband, and Banga lying 
dead. All the assembled people began to wonder, "What is 
this? What is this?" 

So Banga's father called Ogula, and said, "Do not think 
I am displeased with you at the death of my daughter; 
I too was wearied at her doings. So, as you are justified, 
and Banga was wrong, it is no matter to be quarrelled 
about." 

And Ogula 2d said to Ogula, "I am not vexed at you. 
You had done nothing. She wanted to bring trouble on 
you, and it has come on herself. I have no fight with you. 
We will still be friends. But do not live off in your forest 
village by yourself; come you and your wife to live in this 
town." 

So Ogula and his wife consented, and agreed to remove, and 
live with Ogula 2d. And they did so without further trouble. 

VII. The Two Brothers. 

Ra-Mborakinda has his great town, and his wives, and 
his children, and the glory of his kingdom. All his women 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 373 

had no children, except the loved head-wife, Ngwe-nkonde 
(Mother of Queens), and the unloved Ngwe-vazya (Mother 
of Skin-Disease). Each of these two had children, sons, at 
the same time. The father gave them their names. Ngwe- 
nkonde 's was Nkombe, and Ngwe-vazya's was Ogula. 
Again these two women became mothers. This time both of 
them had daughters. Ngwe-nkonde's was named Ngwanga, 
and Ngwe-vazya's was Ilambe. A third time these two bore 
children, sons, on the same day. These two sons grew up 
without names till they began to talk, for the father had 
delayed to give them names. But one day he called them 
to announce to them their names. What he had selected 
they refused, saying that they had already named them- 
selves. Ngwe-nkonde's child named himself Osongo, and 
Ngwe-vazya's Obengi. And the father agreed. 

These two children grew and loved each other very much. 
No one would have thought that they belonged to different 
mothers, so great was the love they had for each other. 
They were always seen together, and always ate at the same 
place. When one happened to be out at mealtime, the 
other would not eat, and would begin to cry till the absent 
one returned. Both were handsome in form and feature. 

When Ngwe-vazya's people heard about her nice-looking 
little boy, they sent word to her, " We have heard about your 
children, but we have not seen you for a long time. Come 
and visit us, and bring your youngest son, for we have heard 
of him and want to see him." 

So she went and asked permission of Ra-Mborakinda, 
saying that she wanted to go and see her people. He was 
willing. Then she made herself ready to start. As soon as 
Osongo knew that his brother Obengi was going away, he 
began to cry at the thought of separation. He said, " I am 
not going to stay alone. I have to go too, for I am not 
willing to be separated from my brother. And Obengi said 
the same : " If Osongo does not go with us, then I will not 
go at all." Then Ngwe-vazya thought to herself, "No, it 
will not do for me to take Osongo along with me, for his 



374 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

mother and I are not friendly." And she told Osongo that 
he must stay. But both the boys persisted, "No, we both 
must go." So Ngwe-vazya said, "Well, let it be so. I 
will take care of Osongo as if he were my own son." And 
Ra-Mborakinda and Ngwe-nkonde were willing that Osongo 
should go. 

So they started and went; and when they reached the town 
of Ngwe-vazya's family the people were very glad to receive 
them. She was very attentive to both the boys, watching 
them wherever they went, for they were the beloved sons of 
Ra-Mborakinda. She was there at her people's town about 
two months. Then she told them that it was time to re- 
turn home with the two boys. Her people assented, and 
began to load her and the boys with parting presents. 

They went back to Ra-Mborakinda's town, and there also 
their people were glad to see them return, for the children 
had grown, and looked well. The people, and even Ra- 
Mborakinda, praised Ngwe-vazya for having so well cared 
for the children, especially the one who was not her own. 

This made Ngwe-nkonde more jealous, because of the 
praise that Ra-Mborakinda gave, and because of the boys' 
fine report of their visit and the abundance of gifts with 
which Ngwe-vazya had returned. So Ngwe-nkonde made 
up her mind that some day she would do the same, that she 
might receive similar praise. She waited some time before 
she attempted to carry out her plan. By the time that she 
got ready to ask leave to go the boys had grown to be lads. 
One day she thought proper to ask Ra-Mborakinda permis- 
sion to go visiting with her son. Ra-Mborakinda was will- 
ing, and she commenced her preparations. 

And again confusion came because of the two lads refusing 
to be separated. Osongo refused to go alone. But after- 
ward he, knowing of his mother's jealous disposition, changed 
his mind, and said to Obengi, "No, I think you better stay." 
But Obengi refused, saying, " No, I have to go too. " Osongo 
then told him the true reason for his objecting. " I said this 
because I know that my mother is not like yours. So please 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 375 

stay; I will be gone only two days, and will then come and 
meet you." But Obengi insisted, "If you go, I go." And 
Ngwe-nkonde said, " Well, let it be so ; I will take care of 
you both." 

So they went. When they reached the town of Ngwe- 
nkonde 's family, the people were glad to see them. She 
also was apparently kind and attentive to the lads for the 
first two days. On the third day she began to think the care 
was troublesome. " These lads are big enough to take care 
of themselves like men." 

She did indeed feel kindly toward Obengi, liking his looks, 
and she said to herself, " I think I will try to win his affec- 
tions from his mother to myself." She tried to do so, but 
the lad was not influenced by her. When she noticed that 
he did not seem to care for her attentions, she was displeased, 
began to hate him, and made up her mind to kill him. 

All the days that the lads were there at the town they 
went out on excursions to the forest, hunting animals. As 
soon as they came back they would sit down together to chat 
and to eat sugar-cane [with African children a substitute 
for candy]. 

Ngwe-nkonde knew of this habit. After she had decided 
to kill Obengi, on the next day she had the sugar-cane 
ready for them. She rubbed poison on one of the stalks, 
and arranged that that very piece should be the the first one 
that Obengi would take. He had taken only two bites, and 
was chewing, when he exclaimed, " Brother, I begin to feel 
giddy, and my eyes see double ! Please give me some water 
quickly! " Water was brought to him. He took a little of 
it. Others, spectators, became excited, and began to dash 
water over his face. But soon he fell down dead. 

Then Ngwe-Nkonde exclaimed to herself, "So I 've been 
here only five days, and now the lad is dead. I don't care! 
Let him die ! " 

By this time Osongo had become greatly excited, crying 
out, and repeating over and over, "My brother! Oh, my 
brother! Oh, my same age!" His mother said to him, 



376 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

" To-morrow I will have him buried, and we will start back 
to our town." Osongo replied to her, "That shall not be. 
He shall not be buried here. We both came together, and 
though he is dead, we both will go back together." The 
next morning Osongo said to his mother, " I know that you 
are at the bottom of this trouble. You know something about 
it. You brought him. And now he is dead. I charge you 
with killing him." She only replied, "I know nothing of 
that. We will wait, and we shall know." 

They began to get ready for the return journey, and some 
of the people said, " Let a coffin be made, and the body be 
placed there." But Osongo said, "No, I don't want that; 
I have a hammock, and he shall be carried in it." So they 
prepared the hammock, and placed in it the dead body. 

As to Ngwe-Nkonde, Osongo had her arrested, and held 
as a prisoner, with her hands tied behind her, and he took 
a long whip with which to drive her. And they started on 
their journey. 

On the way Osongo was wailing a mourning-song, and 
cursing his mother, and weeping, saying, " Oh, we both came 
together, and he is dead! Oh, my brother! Oh, my same 
age ! Obengi gone ! Osongo left ! Oh, the children of one 
father! Osongo, who belongs to Ngwe-Nkonde, left, and 
Obengi, who belongs to Ngwe-Vazya, gone ! " And thus 
they went, he repeating these impromptu words of his song, 
and weeping as he went. As they were going thus, while 
they were still only half-way on their route, a man, Eseren- 
gila (tale-bearer), one of his father's servants, was out in the 
forest hunting. He heard the song. Listening, he said to 
himself, " Those words ! What do they mean ? " Listening 
still, he thought he recognized Osongo's voice, and under- 
stood that one was living and the .other dead. 

So he ran ahead to carry the news to the town before the 
corpse should arrive there. When he reached the town, he 
first told his wife about it. She advised him, "If that is so, 
don't go and tell this bad news to the king; a servant like 
you should not be the bearer of ill news." But he still said, 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 377 

"No, but I 'm going to tell the father." His wife insisted, 
"Do not do it! With those two beloved children, if the news 
be not true, the parents will make trouble for you! " But 
Eserengila started to tell, and by the time he had finished his 
story the company with the corpse were near enough for the 
people of the town to hear all the words of Osongo's song 
of mourning. 

Obengi's father and mother were so excited with grief that 
their people had to hold them fast as if they were prisoners, 
to prevent them injuring themselves. The funeral company 
all went up to the king's house, and laid down the body of 
his son; and Osongo's mother, still tied, was led into the 
house. 

The townspeople were all excited, shouting and weep- 
ing. Some began to give directions about the making of a 
fine coffin. But Osongo said, "No, I don't want him to be 
put into a coffin yet, because when my brother was alive we 
had many confidences and secrets, and now that he is dead, 
I have somewhat of a work to do before he is buried. Let 
the corpse wait awhile." So he asked them all to leave the 
corpse alone while he went out of the town for a short time. 

Then he went away to the village of Ra-Marange, and said 
to him, "I'm in great trouble, and indeed I need your 
help." The prophet replied, "Child, I am too old; I am 
not making medicine now. Go to Ogula-y'-impazya-vazya, 
and repeat your story to him; he will help you." 

Ra-Marange showed him the way to Ogula-y'-impazya- 
vazya's place. He went, and had not gone far when he 
found it. Going to the magician, Osongo said, "I'm in 
trouble, and have come to you." As soon as he had said 
this, Ogula-y'-impazya-vazya made his magic fire, and stepped 
into it. Osongo was frightened, thinking, "I 've come to this 
man, and he is about to kill himself for me"; and he ran 
away. But he had not gone far, when he heard the magi- 
cian's nkendo (a witchcraft bell) ringing, and his voice call- 
ing to him, " If you have come for medicine, come back ; but 
if for anything else, then run away." So Osongo returned 



378 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

quickly, and found that the old magician had emerged from 
his fire and was waiting for him. Osongo told his story of 
his brother's death, and said he wanted direction what to do. 
Ogula-y'-impazya-vazya gave him medicine for a certain pur- 
pose, and told him what to do and how to do it. 

When Osongo came back with the medicine, he entered his 
father's house, into the room where his brother's corpse was 
lying, and ordered every one to leave him alone for a while. 
They all left the room. He closed the door, and following 
the directions given him by Ogula-y c -impazya-vazya, he 
brought Obengi to life again. 

Now came a question what was to be done with Ngwe- 
nkonde, the attempted murderess. It was demanded that 
her throat should be cut, and that her body, weighted with 
stones, should be flung into the river. "For," said Osongo, 
"I will not own such a mother; she is very bad. Obengi's 
mother shall be my mother. " It was decided so. And Ra- 
Mborakinda said to Ngwe-vazya, "You step up to the queen's 
seat with your two sons " (meaning Osongo and Obengi). 

And Ngwe-vazya became head-wife, and was very kind 
and attentive to both sons. 

And the matter ended. 

VIII. JfiKI AND HIS OZAZI. 

Ra-Mborakinda had his town where he lived with his wives, 
his sons, his daughters, and his glory. 

Lord Mborakinda had his loved head- wife, Ngwe-nkonde, 
and the unloved one, Ngwe-lege. Both of these, with other 
of his wives, had sons and daughters. Ngwe-nkonde 's first 
son was Nkombe, and she had two others. Ngwe-lege also 
had three sons, but the eldest of these, Jeki, was a thief. He 
stole everything he came across, — food, fish, and all. This 
became so notorious that when people saw him approach 
their houses they would begin to hide their food and goods, 
saying, "There comes that thief! " 

Jeki's grandfather, the father of his mother, was dead. 
One night, in a dream, that grandfather came to him, and 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 379 

said to him, " J Ski, my son, when will you leave off that 
stealing, and try to work and do other things as others do ? 
To-morrow morning come to me early; I have a word to say 
to you." Jeki replied, "But where do you live, and how 
can I know the way to that town?" He answered, "You 
just start at your town entrance, and go on, and you will see 
the way to my place before you reach it." 

So the next morning Jeki, remembering his dream, said to 
his mother, "Please fix me up some food." [He did not tell 
her that the purpose of the food was not simply for his break- 
fast, but as an extra supply for a journey.] The food that 
was prepared for him was five rolls made of boiled plantains 
mashed into a kind of pudding called "nkima," and tied up 
with dried fish. When these were ready, he put them inside 
his travelling-bag. Then he dressed himself for his journey. 

His mother said, "Where are you going?" He evaded, 
and said, "I will be back again." So he went away. 

After he had been gone a little while, he came to a fork 
of the road, and without hesitation his feet took the one lead- 
ing to the right. After going on for a while he met two 
people named Isakiliya, fighting, whose forms were like 
sticks. [These sticks were abambo, or ghosts. In all native 
folk-lore, where spirits embody themselves, they take an ab- 
surd or singular form, that they may test the amiability or 
severity, as the case may be, of human beings with whom 
they may meet. They bless the kind, and curse the unkind. ] 
He went to them to make peace, and parted them ; took out 
one of his rolls of nkima and fish, gave to them, and passed 
on. They thanked him, and gave him a blessing, " Peace be 
on you, both going and coming! " He went on and on, and 
then he met two Anty& (eyes) fighting. In the same way as 
with the Isakiliya, he went to them, separated them, gave 
them food, was blessed, and went on his way. 

Again he met in the same way two Kumu (stumps) fighting, 
and in the same way he interfered between them, made peace, 
gave food, was blessed, and went on his journey. He went 
on and on, and met with a fourth fight. This time it was be- 



380 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

tween two Poti (heads), and in the same way he made peace 
between them, gave a gift, was blessed, and went on. 

He journeyed and journeyed. And he came to a dividing 
of the way, and was puzzled which to take. Suddenly an old 
woman appeared. He saluted her, " Mbolo ! " took out his last 
roll of nkima, and gave it to her. The old woman thanked 
him, and asked him, "Where are you going?" He replied, 
" I 'm on my way to an old man, but am a little uncertain as 
to my way." She said, "Oh, joy! I know him. I know 
the way. His name is Re-ve-nla-ga-li. " She showed him 
the way, pronounced a blessing on him, and he passed on. 
He had not gone much farther when he came to the place. 

When the old grandfather saw him, he greeted him, " Have 
you come, son?" He answered, "Yes." 

"Well," said the grandfather, "I just live here by myself, 
and do my work myself." And the old man made food for 
him. Then next day this grandfather began to have a talk 
with Jeki. He rebuked him for his habit of stealing. Jeki 
replied, " But, grandfather, what can I do ? I have no work 
nor any money. Even if I try to leave off stealing, I cannot. 
I do not know what medicine will cause me to leave it off." 
Then said the grandfather, "Well, child, I will make the 
medicine for you before you go back to your mother." So 
Jeki remained a few days with his grandfather, and then 
said, "I wish to go back." The grandfather said, "Yes, 
but I have some little work for you to do before you leave." 
So Jeki said, "Good! let me have the work." 

The grandfather gave him an axe, and told him to go and 
cut firewood sufficient to fill the small woodshed. Jeki did 
so, filling the shed in that one day. The regular occupa- 
tion of the old man was the twisting of ropes for the lines 
of seines. So the next day he told Jeki to go and get the 
inner barks, whose fibre was used in his rope-making. Jeki 
went to the forest, gathered this material, and returned with 
it to the old man. 

The next day the grandfather said to Jeki, "Now I am 
ready to start you off on your journey. " And he added, " As 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 381 

you gave as reasons for stealing that you had neither money 
nor the means of getting it, I will provide that. " Then the 
old man called him, took him to a brook-side, and reminded 
him that he had promised that he could make a medicine to 
cure him of his desire to steal. 

The grandfather began to cut open Jeki's chest, and took 
out his heart, washed it all clean, and put it back again. 
Then they went back to the grandfather's house. There he 
gave Jeki an ozazi (wooden pestle), and said, "Now, son, 
take this. This is your wealth. Everything that you wish, 
this will bring to you. Hold it up, express your wish, and 
you will get it. But there is one orunda (taboo) connected 
with it: no one must pronounce the word 'salt' in your 
hearing. You may see and use salt, but may not speak its 
name nor hear it spoken, for if you do things will turn out 
bad for you." "But," the old man added, "if that happens, 
I will now tell you what to do." And he revealed to him a 
secret, and gave him fall directions. When the grandfather 
had finished, he led him a short distance on the way, and 
returned to his house. He had not prepared any food for 
Jeki for the journey, for he with the ozazi would himself 
be able to supply all his own wishes. 

Jeki goes on and on, and then exclaims doubtfully, " Ah, 
only this ozazi is to furnish me with everything! I 'm get- 
ting hungry; so, soon I '11 try its power." He went on a little 
farther, and then decided that he would try whether he could 
get anything by means of the ozazi. So he held it up, and 
said, " I wish a table of food to be spread for me, with two 
white men to eat with me." Instantly there was seen a tent, 
and table covered with food, and two white men sitting. He 
sat down with these two companions. After they had eaten, 
he spoke to the ozazi to cause the tent and its contents to 
disappear. They did so. This proved for him the power of 
his oz&zi, and he was glad, and went on his way satisfied. 

Finally he reached his father's town, whose people saw him 
coming, but gave him no welcome, except his mother, who 
was glad to see him. But most of the people only said, 



382 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

" There ! there is that thief coming again. We must begin 
to hide our things. After Jeki's arrival, in a few days, the 
townspeople noticed a change in him, and inquired of each 
other, " Has he been stealing, or has he really changed ? " 
for shortly after his return he had told his mother and 
brothers all the news, and had warned the people of 
the town about the orunda of "salt." In the course of a 
few days Jeki did many wonderful things with his ozazi. 
He wished for nice little premises of his own with houses 
and conveniences, near his father's town, supplied with ser- 
vants and clothing and furniture. These appeared. Soon, 
by the wealth that he possessed, he became master of the 
town, and ruled over the other children of his father. He 
obtained from that same ozazi, created by its power, two 
wives, — Ngwanga and Ilambe, who were loving and obedi- 
ent. He also bought three other wives from the village, who 
were like servants to the two chief ones. He confided his 
plans and everything to the two favored ones who had come 
out of the ozazi. 

In the course of time he thought he would display his 
power before the people, and for their benefit, by causing 
ships to come with wealth. So he held up the ozazi, and 
said, " I want to see a ship come full of merchandise ! " 

Presently the townspeople began to shout, "A ship! a 
ship ! " It anchored. Jeki called his own brothers and half- 
brothers, and directed, " You all get ready and go out to the 
ship, and tell the captain that I will follow you." They 
made ready, and went on board, and asked, "What goods 
have you brought?" The captain told them, "Mostly cloth, 
and a few other things." They informed him, "Soon the 
chief of the town will come." And they returned ashore, 
and reported to Jeki what was on board. He made himself 
ready and went, leaving word for them to follow soon and 
discharge the cargo. The ship lay there a few days, and 
then sailed away. Then Jeki divided the goods among his 
brothers and parents, keeping only a small share for himself. 

Thus it went on : every few months Jeki ordering a ship 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 383 

to come with goods. As usual, he would send his brothers 
first, they would bring a report, and then he would go on 
board. Sometimes he would eat with the ship's company, 
sometimes he would invite them ashore to eat in his own 
house. 

All this time no one had broken the orunda of "salt." 
But, to prove things, Jeki thought he would try his half- 
brothers, and see what were their real feelings toward him. 
So the next time he caused ships to come with a cargo of 
salt only. At sight of the ships there was the usual shout 
of "A ship! a ship!" The brothers went aboard as usual, 
and found what the cargo was. The half-brothers returned 
ashore immediately, and began to shout when they neared 
Jeki's house, "The ships are full of salt!" He heard the 
word, and said to his mother and to his two chief wives, 
"Do you hear that?" 

The half-brothers came close to him, and exclaimed, 
"Dagula [Sir], the ships are loaded with nothing but salt, 
salt, salt, and the captain is waiting for you." Jeki asked 
again, as if he had not heard, " What is it the captains have 
brought?" And they said, "Salt." So he said, "Let it be 
so. To-day is the day. Good! You go and get ready, and 
I will get ready, and we shall all go together." 

Then the two chief wives looked very sorrowful, for they 
felt sure by his look and tone that something bad was about 
to happen. 

First he ordered a bath to be prepared for himself. It was 
made ready, and he bathed, and went to dress himself in the 
other room, where his goods were stored. When he had 
entered, he called his own two brothers and the two wives, 
and closed the door. He began to examine a few of his boxes. 
Opening a certain one, he said, " Of all my wealth, this was 
one of the first. Now I am going to die. But as it is always 
the custom, a few days after the funeral, to decide who shall 
be the successor and inheritor, when that day arrives, come 
and open this particular box. Do not forget to take the cloth 
for covering the throne of my successor from this box." 



384 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

Inside of that box was a small casket, holding a large black 
silk handkerchief. He kept the secret received from his grand- 
father, and did not tell them what would happen when they 
should come to get cloth from the box. They understood 
only that on the throne -day they were to open the big box and 
the little casket it contained. Then he told them, "Now 
you may go out." They went out. Jeki shut the door, and 
began to dress for the ships. But, before dressing, he took 
out the black silk handkerchief from the small box, and 
rubbed it over his entire body; and, carefully folding it, 
put it back again in the casket and closed it. Then he was 
ready to start. And they all went off to the ships, he with 
the ozazi in hand. He, with his own brothers, was in a boat 
following the boat of his half-brothers. 

He raised a death-song, " Ilendo ! Ilendo ! give me skill for 
a dance ! Ilendo ! Ilendo ! give me skill for a play ! " This 
he sang on the way, jumping from boat to boat. He said he 
would go on board the ships, but ordered all his brothers not 
to come. His plan was that they were to be only witnesses 
of his death. He boarded one of the ships, and went over 
the deck singing and dancing with that same Ilendo song. 
Then he jumped to the deck of the next vessel. 

As he did so, the first one sank instantly. On the second 
ship he sang and danced, and jumped thence to the third, the 
second sinking as the first. On the third ship he continued 
the song and dance ; he remained on it a long while, for he 
caused it to sink slowly. When the water reached the ves- 
sel's deck, the brothers in the boats were looking on with fear. 
His own brothers began to cry, seeing the ship sinking, for 
they knew that Jeki would die with it. When it sank, the 
boats went ashore wailing, and took the news to the town. 

But the half-brothers were not really mourning; they were 
planning the division of Jeki's property. All the town held 
the kwedi (mourning); but after the fifth day the half- 
brothers told their father that it was time for the exaltation 
of a successor to Jeki, the ceremony of ampenda (glories). 
Ngwe-nkonde's first-born son, Nkombe, said, "I will be the 



FETICH IN FOLK-LORE 385 

first to stand on the throne, and my two brothers will be 
next." Jeki's two brothers refused to have anything to say 
about the division. They determined they would remain 
quiet and see what would be done. And the two wives 
of Jeki said the same. 

When the half-brothers came to the house of mourning, 
they began to discuss which of these two women they would 
inherit. Then one of the two wives said, " Oh, Ngwanga, 
we must not forget what Jeki told us about the box, now 
that the people are fixing for the ampenda! " 

So the two brothers of Jeki and the two women went inside 
the room, shut the door, and began to open the big box to 
take out the little casket. By this time the people outside 
had everything ready for the ceremony of the ampenda. The 
two women now opened the casket, took out the black hand- 
kerchief, and unfolded it. And Jeki stood in the middle of 
the room, with his ozazi in his hand. Their surprise was 
great; their joy extreme. In their joy they ran to embrace 
him. 

The people outside were very busy with, their arrangements. 
Nkombe already had taken the throne, having painted his face 
with the little white mark of rule, and given orders to have 
the signal-drum beaten; and the crowd began to dance and 
sing to his praise. 

Jeki sent his youngest brother, Oraniga (last-born), saying, 
" Just go privately and tell my father about me, that I have 
come to life. And I want him to have the whole town swept, 
and to lay bars of iron along the streets for me to step on 
from this house to his. Say also that Ntyege (monkey) must 
continue his firing of guns and cannon ; then I will come and 
meet my father. " 

Oraniga did so; and the father said, " Good ! " and Oraniga 
returned. The father gave the desired orders about the 
sweeping and the iron bars and the firing of cannon; but 
the people at the throne-house did not know of all this. 

Then Jeki and his two wives and two brothers dressed 
themselves finely to walk to the father's house, and marched 

35 



386 FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 

in procession through the street. A few of the people saw 
them, wondered, and asked the drums to stop, exclaiming, 
"Where did they come from?" The procession went on to 
the father's house, and Ntyege kept on with the cannon 
firing. 

On reaching his father's house, Jeki told him he had some- 
thing to say, and the father ordered the drum to cease. All 
the people were summoned to the father's house to hear 
Jeki's words. He said, "Father, I know that I am your 
son, and Nkombe is your son. You all know what Nkombe 
has done, for he was at the bottom of this matter; so now 
choose between him and me. If you love him more, I will 
go far away and stay by myself; but if you love me, Nkombe 
must be removed from this town." 

So the father asked the opinion of others. (For himself, 
he wanted to have Jeki.) Nkombe's own brothers said he 
ought to be killed, "for he is not so good to us as Jeki was." 
So they bound Nkombe, and tied a stone about his neck, and 
drowned him in the sea. 

And everything went on well, Jeki governing, and provid- 
ing for the town. 



GLOSSAEY 



A. 

Abuna, abundance. 

Aganlo, children of mixed mortal 

and fairy birth. 
Akazya, a poisonous tree. 
Amie, do not know. 
Anlingo, water. 
Autya (sing, intya), eyes. 
Anyambe, the Divine Name. 
Aweme, yourself. 
AySnwe, unseen. 

B. 

Babaka, consent thou. 

Behu, kitchen garden. 

Benda, a kind of rat. 

Biaii, medicine. 

Bobabu, soft. 

Bohamba, \ 

Boka, f a certain medicinal 

Bokadi, ? tree. 

Bokuda, J 

Bolondo, a poisonous tree. 

Bongam, a certain medicinal tree. 

Botombaka, passing away. 

Buhwa, day. 

Bwanga, medicine. 



Dagula, Mr., a title of respect. 
Diba, marriage. 
Diya, the hearth ; a household. 
Diyaka, to live. 

E. 

Ebabi, a male love philtre. 
Egona, a small antelope horn. 



Ehongo, a cornucopia. 

Ekongi, a guardian-spirit fetich. 

Ekope, a girdle. 

Elamba, a certain medicinal tree. 

Elinga, a basket. 

Etomba, tribe. 

Evove, harlot. 

Ewiria, words of hidden meaning. 



F. 



Fufu, mashed, boiled ripe plantains. 

G. 

Go, to, in, at. 

Greegree (gris-gris), fetich amulet. 

Gumbo, okra. 

Gwandere, a medicine for worms. 

H. 

Haye, will not do. 
Hume, a certain fish. 

I. 

Ibambo (pi. abambo), ghosts. 

Ibata, a blessing. 

Iga, the forest. 

Iguga, woe. 

IhSli, a gazelle. 

Ijawe (pi. majawe), blood relative. 

Ikaka (pi. makaka), family name. 

Ilala, an arch ; a stairway. 

Ilina (pi. malina), soul. 

Ina, my mother. 

Ininla (pi. anlinla), soul. 

Injenji, a certain leaf ; fault. 



388 



GLOSSARY 



Isakiliya, kindling-wood. 
Isiki (pi. asiki), a dwarf change- 
ling. 
Itaka, a kitchen hanging-shelf. 
Itala, a view. 
Ivaha, a wish. 

Ivenda (pi. ampenda), glory. 
Iyele, a female love philtre. 



Ja, of. 

Jaka, to beget. 

Joba, the sun. 

Jomba, meat cooked in a bundle of 

plantain leaves. 
Juju ; an amulet. 



Ka, and you. 

Kasa, a lash. 

Keva, to surpass. 

Kilinga, a kind of bird. 

Kimbwa-mbenje, native bark-cloth. 

Kna, a kind of bird. 

Knakna, a large kind of bird. 

Koka, a large kind of bird. 

Kombo, a superstitious ejaculation. 

Konde, queen. 

Kota, a certain tree. 

Kulu, a kind of spirit. 

Kumu, a stump. 

Kwedi, time of mourning. 



Lale, my father. 

M. 

Mabili, an east-wind fetich. 

Mba, not I. 

Mbenda, ground-nut. 

Mbi, I. 

Mbinde, a wild goat. 

Mbolo, gray hairs ; a salutation. 

Mbulu, a wild dog. 

Mbumbu, rainbow. 

Mbundu, poison ordeal. 



Mbwa (pi. imbwa), dog. 

Mbwaye, a poison test. 

Mehole, ripe plantains. 

Miba, water. 

Mie, me. 

Monda, witchcraft medicine. 

Mondi (pi. myondi), a class of 

spirits. 
Mpazya, skin disease. 
Mulimate, a small horn for cupping. 
Musimo, spirits of the dead. 
Muskwa, a medicinal brush. 
Mutira, a medicinal stick. 
Mvia, a kind of bird. 
Mwana, a child. 
Mwanga, a plantation. 

N. 
Na, with. 
Ndabo, house. 
Nd&mbg, young. 
Nduma, a kind of snake. 
Ngalo, a guardian- spirit charm. 
Ngama, a water plant. 
Nganda, gourd seeds. 
Ngande, moon. 
Ngofu, an iron fetich bracelet. 
Ngunye, a flying-squirrel. 
Nguwu, hippopotamus. 
Ngwe, mother. 
Njabi, a wild oily fruit. 
Njgga, leopard. 
Nkala, a large snail. 
Nkanja, a marriage dance. 
Nkendo, a magician's bell. 
Nkinda (pi. sinkinda), a class of 

spirits. 
Nsana, Sunday. 
Nsinsim, a shadow. 
Ntori, a large forest rat. 
NtySge, a monkey. 
Nungwa, open thou. 
Nunja, shut thou. 
Nyamba, a scarf slung over the 

right shoulder, in which to carry a 

babe. 
Nyemba, witchcraft. 
Nyolo, body. 



GLOSSARY 



389 



0. 

Odika, kernel of the wild mango. 

Oganga, doctor. 

Ogenda, a journey. 

Ogwerina, rear of a house. 

Okove, a powerful fetich. 

Okume, African mahogany tree. 

Okundu, a kind of fetich for trading. 

Olaga (pi. ilaga), a class of spirits. 

Olako, a camping place. 

Ombwiri (pi. awiri), a class of 
spirits. 

Ompunga, wind. 

Orala, a hanging shelf over a fire- 
place. 

Oraniga, last-born. 

Orawo, insult. 

Orega, the Njembe secret society 
drum. 

Orunda, a prohibition; taboo. 

Osenge, a cleared place in the 
forest. 

Ovavi (pi. ivavi), messenger. 

Owavi (pi. sijavi), a leaf . 

Ozyazi, a pestle. 

Ozyoto, a cornucopia. 



P. 



Paia, my father. 
Pavo, a knife. 
Pek6, ever. 



R. 



Rera, my father. 



S. 



Saba, ) 
Sabali, > 
Sale, hail ! 



an oath. 



Tamba, the womb. 
Tube, a certain leaf. 
Tuwaka, bless ; spit 

U. 

Udinge, a great person. 

Ukuku (pi. mekuku), spirit; 

secret society. 
Ukwala, a machete. 
Untyanya, a medicinal bark. 
Unyongo, a medicinal tree. 
Upuma, a period of six months. 
Utodu, old. 
Uvengwa, a phantom. 



Veya, fire. 



Y. 



Yaginla, imperative, hear thou. 
Yaka, a family fetich. 



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